that he should repay himself for all the sorrow and anxiety her
illness had given him by keeping her a little while after she was
quite well and strong, and could go for a walk with him, and see the
beautiful shops, with their Christmas-wares displayed.

"New Year's will be soon enough. I'll take her to the master for a
New-Year's gift," Teddy had said to himself that very night as he
came up the stairs; and a sort of satisfaction crept into his heart
in thinking that he had at least fixed a date for fulfilling his
promise.

But New-Year's Day found 'Toinette, or Cherry as we must learn to
call her, more unlike her former self than she had been when he
formed the resolution. The strange emotion that had overcome her in
listening to the organ-grinder's music had caused a relapse into
fever, followed by other troubles; and spite of Dr. Wentworth's
constant care, Mrs. Ginniss's patient and tender nursing, and
Teddy's devotion, the child seemed pining away without hope or
remedy.

"I'll wait till the spring comes, anyway," said Teddy to himself.
"Maybe the warm weather will bring her round, and I'll hear her
laugh out once, and take her for just one walk on the Commons before
I carry her to the master."