"You take more pain than you used, Mademoiselle," he said one day; "if
you go on so, you shall be my best scholar. And if to hurt the back make
you study, it would be well that some other of my young ladies shall do
the same."

Katy laughed. But in spite of Mr. Berger and his lessons, and in spite
of her endeavors to keep cheerful and busy, this second winter was
harder than the first. It is often so with sick people. There is a sort
of excitement in being ill which helps along just at the beginning. But
as months go on, and everything grows an old story, and one day follows
another day, all just alike and all tiresome, courage is apt to flag and
spirits to grow dull. Spring seemed a long, long way off whenever Katy
thought about it.

"I wish something would happen," she often said to herself. And
something was about to happen. But she little guessed what it was
going to be.

"Katy!" said Clover, coming in one day in November, "do you know where
the camphor is? Aunt Izzie has got _such_ a headache."

"No," replied Katy, "I don't. Or--wait--Clover, it seems to me that
Debby came for it the other day. Perhaps if you look in her room
you'll find it."

"How very queer!" she soliloquized, when Clover was gone; "I never knew
Aunt Izzie to have a headache before."

"How is Aunt Izzie?" she asked, when Papa came in at noon.