Lizzie looked at her in surprise. "I'm not likely to get the chance," she said.
"But promise me you won't go if you do get the chance. Not—not till I'm gone!" whispered Tottie.
Lizzie looked at her companion, and for the first time she noticed how greatly the girl had changed during the last few days. The weather had grown colder, and the air was sharp and bleak, and Tottie coughed almost incessantly.
"Are you worse?" she asked in a tone of concern as the girl again broke into a violent fit of coughing.
When she could speak the girl gasped out, "I'm going to die, Liz. I'm not afraid now, since you told me about God and Jesus Christ; 'cos he knows everything, and he knows I've never had a chance here. And there's lots like me. So he must have a school of some sort up there, where he teaches gals like me. I've give up the gin since you told me he didn't like it. But I'd like you to stop with me till he comes to fetch me, and after that, you get back to your mother as fast as you can, and tell her not to grieve, and not to scold ye, for God sent you to bring a message to a poor gal, who couldn't have learned nothing about him if you hadn't run away from her."
"But-but Tottie, you ain't so very bad, are you?" said Lizzie in a little alarm. "You've had a cough you know a long time."
"Yes, I have; and I'm just upon wore out," said the girl gaspingly.
Neither dreamed how near the end was for poor Tottie when they had this talk, but a few weeks of wandering in the bleaker air of Scotland hastened the work of destruction that had been slowly going on in the outer shell of the girl's being, and one day when it was a little colder than usual, and Tottie's cough consequently rather more violent, she broke a blood vessel.
The sight alarmed Mrs. Stanley, and she ran for a doctor; for they were just outside a large town then, where a fair was to be held the following day. Tottie was carried to the parlour van, which was only used to receive company and tell fortunes. And doubtless this removal, when the poor girl was in such a critical condition, greatly aggravated the danger, although the place was more comfortable. The doctor came, and ordered that the van should be drawn on to the nearest piece of waste ground and there remain still. The fair-ground to which they were bound was on the other side of the town, and though Mrs. Stanley protested that the invalid could and must go there, the doctor was equally firm, and said she would be guilty of murder, if she moved the van further while Tottie was so bad.
"This girl can stay with her," he said. "She is not fit to do anything at the fair. Have you got a cough too?" he asked Lizzie.