"  He  cometh  not,  she  said,"

remarked  "Sir  Charles"  for  the  twentieth
time  ;  and  Julie  was  fain  to  add,  at  last,  —

"  I  am  aweary,  aweary ;  I  would  that  I  were  dead."

She  had  borne  the  bantering  of  her  com-
panions through  the  whole  evening,  bravely,
and  with  high  spirits  and  quick  repartee,
for  somehow  there  had  sprung  up  in  her
heart  an  affection  for  the  child,  and  she
believed  that  he  would  surely  keep  his  faith
with  her  and  come  ;  his  clear,  blue  eyes
were  so  honest  and  so  pure,  and  he  prom-
ised her  with  such  simple  earnestness.
Now  she  could  no  longer  hope  for  his
coming,  but  she  had  a  thousand  excuses


228  DICK,    THE   DOOR-BOY.
for  him  still ;  the  night  was  so  stormy,  and
the  way  so  long,  and  he  was  such  "  a  little
boy."

There  was  a  sound  of  shuffling  feet  in
the  hall,  some  exclamations  of  astonish-
ment, some  hurried  directions,  and  Julie
rushed  out  to  learn  the  cause  of  the  alarm.
The  burly  coachman  was  there,  with
Dick  in  his  arms,  a  wretched,  wounded,
half-frozen  little  body.
"  Found  'im  just  hout  there  by  the  steps,
'alf-buried  in  the  snow,  ma'am."

They  bore  the  poor,  unconscious  child
up  the  broad  stairway,  where  happier  chil-
dren had  that  evening  sat  to  count  their
many  treasures,  and  down  the  hall,  into
a  room,  the  like  of  whose  magnificence
the  boy  had  never  even  dreamed  of,  and
dressed  his  wounds,  and  bound  up,  ten-
derly, his  frozen  hands  and  limbs ;  and  the
only  being  whom  he  ever  knew,  to  love,
sat  by  and  held  her  breath,  the  while  his
own  came,  faint  and  tremulous,  from  the
wind-swept  shores  of  death.
