"Oh! she is not dangerously ill."
"But I suppose she may be suffering," I added, in a sharp tone, for which I had been reproved times without number at home.
"Why, as to that, we must all instruct ourselves to suffer. I am very sorry for my little pupil. She has had an attack of inflammation, but is only now kept still by weakness, Miss Benette tells me."
"Miss Benette is very good to her, I think."
"Miss Benette is very good to everybody," said Davy, earnestly, with a strange, bright meaning in his accent I looked up at him, but it was too dark to see his expressive face, for now we were in the street.
"She is good to me, but could hardly be so to you, sir. She says you have done everything for her, and do still."
"I try to do my duty by her; but I owe to her more than I can ever repay."
How curious, to be sure! I thought, but I did not say so, there was a preventive hush in his tone and manner.
"I should so like to know what we shall sing to-morrow."
"So you shall, to-morrow; but to-night I scarcely know myself. I will come in with you, that I may obtain your mother's permission to run away with you again,—but not to another festival just yet; I could almost say, 'Would that it were!'"