turned low. Drawn up in front, but a little to one side of the fire, was
a sofa, covered with red rep, and on the sofa lay a fair-haired little
form, so thin and fragile that it looked like the ghost or outline of a
girl, rather than a girl herself. It was Jeannie, her sick sister, and
she was asleep. Augusta stole softly up to look at her. It was a sweet
little face that her eyes fell on, although it was so shockingly thin,
with long, curved lashes, delicate nostrils, and a mouth shaped like a
bow. All the lines and grooves which the chisel of Pain knows so well how
to carve were smoothed out of it now, and in their place lay the shadow
of a smile.

Augusta looked at her and clenched her fists, while a lump rose in her
throat, and her grey eyes filled with tears. How could she get the money
to save her? The year before a rich man, a man who was detestable to
her, had wanted to marry her, and she would have nothing to say to him.
He had gone abroad, else she would have gone back to him and married
him--at a price. Marry him? yes she would marry him: she would do
anything for money to take her sister away! What did she care for herself
when her darling was dying--dying for the want of two hundred pounds!

Just then Jeannie woke up, and stretched her arms out to her.

"So you are back at last, dear," she said in her sweet childish voice.
"It has been so lonely without you. Why, how wet you are! Take off your
jacket at once, Gussie, or you will soon be as ill as"--and here she
broke out into a terrible fit of coughing, that seemed to shake her
tender frame as the wind shakes a reed.

Her sister turned and obeyed, and then came and sat by the sofa and took
the thin little hand in hers.