settled gloom rested over her once merry heart. She was as one
suffering from an indefinable hunger; even she herself knew not
what it was she wanted. Unremitting was the attention shown,
nurses and doctors alike doing their utmost, even to works of
supererogation, on her behalf. Week by week her parents visited
her, while there was not a patient in the ward who would not have
sacrificed a half of her own chances of recovery, if by so doing
she could have ensured hers. All, however, seemed in vain; rally
she could not. The ward oppressed her, and the gloomy autumn
clouds that hung over the wilderness of warehouses upon which her
eye rested day by day canopied her with despair. She listened for
the wind--but all she heard was its monotonous hum along the
telegraph wires that stretched overhead. She looked for the
birds--but all she saw was the sooty-winged house-sparrow that
perched upon the eaves. She longed for the stars--but the little
area of sky that grudgingly spared itself for her gaze was oftener
clouded than clear as the night hour drew on. The truth was, she
was pining for her native heath; but she knew it not, nor did her
kindly ministrants.

In the next bed to Milly's lay a young woman slowly dying of an
internal malady, whose home, too, was far away among the moors,
and whose husband came week by week to visit her. On one of these
visits he brought with him a bunch of flowers--for the most part
made up of the 'wildings of Nature'--among which was a tuft of
heather in all the glory of its autumnal bloom. Turning towards
the sick child, the poor woman reached out her wasted arm, and
throwing a spray on to Milly's counterpane, said:

'Here, lass, I'll gi' thee that.'