"Oh! I live close by--right on that big green square, where I guess
the nurse takes you once in awhile," said Billy patronizingly. Then,
looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out
there."

"No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and
I've just come to visit him."

"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the
inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking-stove--for real fire--and
blocks, and a ball with a string."

Billy, who belonged to a club for the practise of the great American
game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battist among
the I. G. B. B. 0., or "Infant Giants," smiled from an altitude upon
Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday
afternoon.

Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my
room over "Pickwick" with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the
door told of Daniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow,
dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained
silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then
dropping his head again, to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down
Dickens and spoke myself:

"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?"

"I don't feel very well, uncle."