"My child," said Jem in a kind voice, addressing her, "do you think if I brought you a blanket you could keep it from being stolen?"
The child looked up suddenly. A face, with all its want and suffering, on which something indescribable was written. Jem did not analyze it, but he felt it.
"I think so," she answered. "I know a place outside up under the roof where I could hide it away if I go out. That's what I have to do with most things as it is."
Meg seated herself on the box by the child's side and looked down on his little face. She put his wavy hair back from his forehead and said tenderly—
"Poor little dear, you have a bad cough!"
"Yes," said the child; "me cough all de time."
"Yes," pursued his sister. "Dickie's been bad this five weeks, and if it hadn't been for father having a bit of work, and bringin' home a little for once, he'd ha' died."
Dickie did not seem to mind being thus spoken of, but he turned his head wearily away, as if it were too much trouble to think.
"I like bein' ill," he whispered, as Meg bent over him.
"Like it, dear?" she questioned, thinking she had not heard aright.