"Come sit beside me, and I'll tell you, sir; that is, if you please
I should love to talk with you, for it's lonely here when Bess is
gone."

Something in the child's winning voice, and the influence of the
cheerful room, calmed the young man's troubled spirit and seemed to
lighten his despair. He sat down at the bedside looking gloomily
upon the child, who lay smiling placidly as with skilful hands he
carved small figures from the bits of wood scattered round him on
the coverlid.

"What have you to make you happy, Jamie? Tell me your secret, for I
need the knowledge very much," said his new friend earnestly.

"First of all I have dear Bess," and the child's voice lingered
lovingly upon the name; "she is so good, so very good to me, no one
can tell how much we love each other. All day, she sits beside my
bed singing to ease my pain, or reading while I work; she gives me
flowers and birds, and all the sunshine that comes in to us, and
sits there in the shadow that I may be warm and glad. She waits on
me all day; but when I wake at night, I always see her sewing
busily, and know it is for me,--my good kind Bess!

"Then I have my work, sir, to amuse me; and it helps a little too,
for kind children always buy my toys, when Bess tells them of the
little boy who carved them lying here at home while they play out
among the grass and flowers where he can never be."

"What else, Jamie?" and the listener's face grew softer as the