"All alone?" said Mrs. Nettley.
"Oh yes! —" came with most fervent breath from Winnie. Her head uneasily turned the other cheek to the pillow.
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Nettley; and every line of her careful and sympathetic face said it over again. "Poor child! — And Mr. Winthrop's been away all the morning!"
"I don't know why you call me poor," said Winnie, whose nerves could not bear even that slight touch, if it happened to touch the wrong way; — "Of course he's been away all the morning — he always is."
"And you're tired. I didn't mean poor, dear, in the way that I am poor myself; — not that poor, — I only meant, — because you were so much here all alone without your brother."
"I know what you meant," said Winnie.
"It's hot up here, isn't it," said Mrs. Nettley going to the window. "Dreadful. It's hot down stairs too. Can't we let a little air in?" —
"Don't! It's hotter with it."
Mrs. Nettley left the window and came and stood by Winnie's couch, her face again saying what her voice did not dare to say, — "Poor child!" —
"Mrs. Nettley —"