The afternoon had been uncommonly sultry and oppressive, so that even the plants and trees appeared to droop and wither, and all about the city were hot and tired people lagging homeward as if every energy were utterly exhausted. Archie had been working unusually hard, so that the old pain had seized his back again, making him miserably despondent lest he should be wholly crippled, and thrown quite broken and helpless upon his struggling relatives, and he was panting toward the quarter of the city where his shelter was, with slow and weary steps, when suddenly, as he passed a bright saloon, he heard a joyous cry of "Oh! mamma, just look, there he is again!" and before he could get away, the pleasant face of the lady was bent upon him from the window of the carriage that stood before the door, and she motioned him to her.

Perhaps he would have heeded her summons if he had not seen an impatient and scornful countenance peeping curiously through the side-curtain. May be it was but his native pride that induced him to press onward with only a quiet and polite recognition of her notice.

"There, Willie, you've driven him away," said Kittie, frowning upon her cousin reproachfully. "How could you look so cross at him when you knew mamma wanted him to come up and speak to us? Well, I shall go to see him, whatever you do, that's certain," continued she, after a short pause, as the lad leaned back upon his seat without deigning a reply. Then taking up the thin hand that lay upon his knee, she kissed it affectionately as if to atone for the momentary pique against him; but her eyes followed the poor boy until he was no longer visible among the crowd, and she was thinking of the pitiful expression, and contrasting it with the trustful, hopeful one that she had last seen from the lonely library, and wondering what could make the difference. And she cared little for the drive, although they passed through beautiful streets and along her favorite haunts, by the bay, and out on the avenues and quite beyond the noise and dust of the city, in the midst of God's own fair and beautiful nature. The mother noticed the child's abstraction, and it saddened her to think of the shadow that comes over the brightness of one's early being, shutting out the loveliness and the grace even from the youngest heart.

It was hard to feel that an unsightly hump, and a woe-begone face were occupying the place that had hitherto been filled with images of joy and gladness; but Mrs. Lincoln was a wise mother, and would not try to divert her child's mind from the salutary lesson which the very shadow itself ever brings; so they moved on with the unbroken silence, save when Willie gave utterance to some pettish feeling, and then little Kittie would look at him with a deeper pity than poor Archie had ever called forth.

They were alone in the evening, after their return from their drive, and Willie was sitting in his easy-chair by the door, while his young cousin was upon the sill at his feet apparently absorbed in some intense subject, for her pet kitten was making sad havoc with the neat straw hat that had fallen from her head, and lay unnoticed upon the step, the ribbons already crumpled and wet by Miss Pussy's chewing; and Willie had twice spoken to her without an answer. It was rather too much for the impetuous youth to bear, and when he spoke again it was with a tinge of bitterness.

"I thought mother sent for you here to amuse me, Kittie, and not to waste all your pity upon a poor beggar whom you happened to meet in the street. I'm sure I might as well be without you, as to have you as dull and silent as you have been since you saw that miserable boy. Well, haven't you any thing to say yet," continued he, as she fixed her wondering and sorrowful eyes upon his face. "It's enough to tire any body's patience to speak, and speak, and speak, and no one to answer you but the echo of your own voice. That's the way it's always been; but I might have known it. Nobody cares for a deformed boy!" and the lad threw the bunch of flowers that his cousin had just before arranged for him, out the door and wheeled his chair further back, although he was not so far removed as to lose the reproachful glance of Kittie.

"Oh, Willie!" said she, "if you had only noticed poor Archie, as I did, and seen how troubled and worn he looked, and how the big drops stood all over his forehead, as he moved on with one hand to his back, you wouldn't wonder that I don't want to talk and play to-night! It makes me so sorry because I can't help it any, and you know he's poor and has to work, when may be he's too sick and lame to do any thing."

"Why don't you pity me, Kittie? Here I have to sit, day after day, moping in this dull old house; I can't go any where, and I can't do any thing as other boys do, and there don't any body care, either, but you all seem as merry and happy as if I were the most favored person in the world. You needn't look at me with your great staring eyes, as if I were the wickedest boy you ever saw; perhaps you'd be better if you were in my place; but I'm not bad enough to wish you there, much as I wish to cast off this loathsome body and find myself upright and perfect. Come, come, Kittie, we won't quarrel any more; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," said he, as the tears rolled down the child's face and fell upon her white dress. "You mustn't mind when I am cross, but must love me, whatever any body else does. I don't like to feel as I do so often; but how can I help it? Every thing goes wrong with me. I thought when you came I'd got somebody that wouldn't get tired of me, and it frets me to see you thinking all the time of that beggar-boy."

"I do indeed love you, dear Willie," replied his little cousin, rising, and clasping him around the neck; "but I wish poor Archie had time to lie down on a soft couch like yours, and had a kind mother to kiss him, and fan him, and soothe away his pain, as you have. I'm afraid to hear you talk pettishly, when you have so many comforts, for mamma says 'God sometimes takes away our good things if we do not know how to prize them and be thankful for them,'" and the child ran to her mother, whose voice she heard in the hall.

It was very well to leave the murmuring boy alone just then, for her little prattle was not without its effect upon her cousin, who began to think that perhaps there were others in the world as miserably off as himself.

"I'll go with Kittie to see the poor lad, any way," soliloquized he. "It won't do me any harm, and may be it will amuse me a little while."

Still selfish, poor youth! If it had only been, "May be it will amuse him a little while," then the obtrusive hump wouldn't be so heavy, and the murmuring, repining spirit would become joyous and grateful. But we will have patience with thee for a while yet. It is so easy, with this healthy, robust frame, to reproach the diseased and fretful one. We will try to be lenient toward thy complainings.