wants and ease her sufferings.

Her thin face had become thinner, and was very pale; her head had been
shaved close, and there was nothing between the broad white border of
her nightcap and her clammy brow and wan cheek. But illness was more
becoming to Anty than health; it gave her a melancholy and beautiful
expression of resignation, which, under ordinary circumstances, was
wanting to her features, though not to her character. Her eyes were
brighter than they usually were, and her complexion was clear,
colourless, and transparent. I do not mean to say that Anty in her
illness was beautiful, but she was no longer plain; and even to the
young Kellys, whose feelings and sympathies cannot be supposed to have
been of the highest order, she became an object of the most intense
interest, and the warmest affection.

"Well, doctor," she said, as Doctor Colligan crept into her room, after
the termination of his embassy to Barry; "will he come?"

"Oh, of course he will; why wouldn't he, and you wishing it? He'll be
here in an hour, Miss Lynch. He wasn't just ready to come over with
me."

"I'm glad of that," said Anty, who felt that she had to collect her
thoughts before she saw him; and then, after a moment, she added,
"Can't I take my medicine now, doctor?"

"Just before he comes you'd better have it, I think. One of the girls
will step up and give it you when he's below. He'll want to speak a
word or so to Mrs Kelly before he comes up."