'Like him! I'd wish something else before I wished that,' said
Ellen. 'Don't think about it, Alfred dear; here are Miss Jane's
pictures.'

'I don't want the pictures,' said Alfred wearily, as he laid his head
down on his white pillow, and shut his eyes because they were hot
with tears.

Ellen looked at him very sadly, and the feeling in her own mind was,
that he was right, and nothing could make up for the health and
strength that she knew her mother feared would never return to him.

There he lay, the fair hair hanging round the white brow with the
furrows of pain in it, the purple-veined lids closed over the great
bright blue eyes, the long fingers hanging limp and delicate as a
lady's, the limbs stretched helplessly on the couch, whither it cost
him so much pain to be daily moved. Who would have thought, that not
six months ago that poor cripple was the merriest and most active boy
in the parish?

The room was not a sad-looking one. There were spotless white dimity
curtains round the lattice window; and the little bed, and the walnut
of the great chest, and of the doors of the press-bed on which Alfred
lay, shone with dark and pale grainings. There was a carpet on the
floor, and the chairs had chintz cushions; the walls were as white as
snow, and there were pretty china ornaments on the mantel-piece, many
little pictures hanging upon the walls, and quite a shelf of books
upon the white cloth, laid so carefully on the top of the drawers. A
little table beside Alfred held a glass with a few flowers, a cup
with some toast and water, a volume of the 'Swiss Family Robinson;'