The poor girl raved incessantly about ribbons and Annie's tearful face,
and seemed to be in great distress of mind. Annie heard that Charlotte
was very ill, and came to see her. She was shocked to hear her talk so
wildly, and to see her face flushed with fever. She stayed some time,
but Charlotte did not know her, although she often mentioned her name.
When Annie returned home she asked her mother's permission to stay with
Charlotte as much as possible, which Mrs. Grey cheerfully gave, and went
to visit her herself.

For a whole week poor Charlotte's fever raged violently, and as Annie or
her mother were with her constantly, they could not fail to discover
from the sick girl's ravings that she had taken the lost fivepence.
Annie, however, who heartily forgave her playmate, never mentioned what
she heard to her mother, and Mrs. Grey also wisely refrained from
telling her suspicions. She was better acquainted with the treatment of
the sick than Mrs. Murray, and she watched over Charlotte with the
tenderness of a mother. One day Annie sat reading her Bible by the
bedside when Charlotte awoke from a long sleep, the first she had
enjoyed, and looking towards Annie said in a feeble voice,

"Oh, dear Annie, is that you?"

The little girl rose, and bending over her sick playmate, begged her in
a gentle voice to lie still and be quiet.

"I will, I will," answered Charlotte, clasping her hands feebly about
her friend's neck as she leaned towards her, "if you will only say you
forgive me. Oh, you know not what a wicked girl I am, and yet it seems
as if I had been telling everybody."