undergoing, and, looking up in her face, took her thumb out of her
mouth, and said,

"Is the Lord chastening Alice? I wish he would chasten Phosy."

Her lace was calm as that of the Sphinx; there was no mist in the
depth of her gray eyes, not a cloud on the wide heaven of her
forehead.

Was the child crazed? What could the atom mean, with her big eyes
looking right into her? Alice never had understood her: it were indeed
strange if the less should comprehend the greater! She was not yet,
capable of recognising the word of the Lord in the mouth of babes and
sucklings. But there was a something in Phosy's face besides its
calmness and unintelligibility. What it was Alice could never have
told--yet it did her good. She lifted the child on her lap. There she
soon fell asleep. Alice undressed her, laid her in her crib, and went
to bed herself.

But, weary as she was, she had to rise again before she got to sleep.
Her mistress was again taken ill. Doctor and nurse were sent for in
hot haste; hansom cabs came and went throughout the night, like noisy
moths to the one lighted house in the street; there were soft steps
within, and doors were gently opened and shut. The waters of Mara had
risen and filled the house.

Towards morning they were ebbing slowly away. Letty did not know that
her husband was watching by her bedside. The street was quiet now. So
was the house. Most of its people had been up throughout the night,
but now they had all gone to bed except the strange nurse and Mr.