"What's the matter with him?"
"It's a kind o' waste, they say."
"Not a fever, or anything of that kind?" inquired David.
"O no, sir; he's been wasting, now, these three or four months."
"And they are not comfortable, Sarah?" Matilda asked.
"There's few is, livin' where those lives," said Mrs. Staples; "and of course, sickness makes things wuss. No, they're fur from comfortable, I should say."
"They haven't anything to give him," said Sarah low to Matilda.
"Any medicine, you mean?"
"No, Miss Matilda; nothing to eat, that he can eat."
"O David!" exclaimed Matilda, "let us go there. Where is it?"