"Now I can see," said Cousin Helen.

It was a forlorn-looking child enough which she saw lying before her.
Katy's face had grown thin, and her eyes had red circles about them from
continual crying. Her hair had been brushed twice that morning by Aunt
Izzie, but Katy had run her fingers impatiently through it, till it
stood out above her head like a frowsy bush. She wore a calico
dressing-gown, which, though clean, was particularly ugly in pattern;
and the room, for all its tidiness, had a dismal look, with the chairs
set up against the wall, and a row of medicine-bottles on the
chimney-piece.

"Isn't it horrid?" sighed Katy, as Cousin Helen looked around.
"Everything's horrid. But I don't mind so much now that you've come. Oh,
Cousin Helen, I've had such a dreadful, _dreadful_ time!"

"I know," said her cousin, pityingly. "I've heard all about it, Katy,
and I'm so very sorry for you! It is a hard trial, my poor darling."

"But how do _you_ do it?" cried Katy.

"How do you manage to be so sweet and beautiful and patient, when you're
feeling badly all the time, and can't do anything, or walk, or
stand?"--her voice was lost in sobs.

Cousin Helen didn't say anything for a little while. She just sat and
stroked Katy's hand.

"Katy," she said at last, "has Papa told you that he thinks you are
going to get well by and by?"