The sun had been up for a long time, and the old grandmother had the breakfast upon the table. She hadn't called Archie, for she knew the boy's habits, and supposed he was busy with his books as usual, so she helped her son to his hasty meal, and saw him and his trowel and pipe a long distance without the door before she ventured to disturb her grandchild's quiet. Thump, thump, thump, upon the bedroom wall, and not an answering sound, yet, after a moment, there seemed to be a stir, and some words that were not intelligible to her obtuse ear. She didn't wait much longer, but lifted the latch and entered his room.

What ails the boy? His eyes are wild and fierce, and his figure is tossed from side to side of the narrow bed, while he mutters of his mother, and of a sweet lady, and a gentle child; and then he presses a parched hand to his brow, and begs them not to heap up the hot coals there, but to bring him ice, ice; and then he clinches his fist and strikes at the old woman who has approached him to try to calm him, but she has no power over his ravings, and she perceives that he has a terrible fever; and then she remembers that he would go supperless to bed the night before, and that he looked paler and more weary than usual, and she chides herself for not coming earlier to see if he was ill. She wishes some body would come; it wouldn't do to leave him alone, and what can she do by herself? There's a knock at the outer door, she thinks—no; it is only a stray goat that frequents that quarter of the city, and has come for her accustomed offering of food. She hasn't any heart to stop now, and the disappointed animal goes off again to try her next neighbor. There's no milk-man, nor baker, nor butcher's boy, nor grocer to come to her, for they do all their own purchasing at the small shop near, and so the morning wears on, and the lad grows more delirious, and talks about coffins, and death, and horrible sights, and just as his grandmother, too frightened to neglect the case longer, locks the door of his room, and gets her bonnet on to find a doctor, a lady gives a slight rap and enters the outer door, followed by a young girl. She hears the delirious tones, and immediately knows that the boy is ill, and the old woman gladly accepts her kind offer to sit by him until she returns with the physician, though she says it is too much for a lady to consent to, and she is fearful the boy will do her some harm in his raving mood.

"Don't be troubled," said Mrs. Lincoln, "I'm not afraid;" and she turned the key, and was soon beside the sufferer with her delicate hand upon his brow, and her tender words soothing his horrors all away. It was wonderful what a charm there was in the gentle eye that was fixed upon him, and the soft touch that cooled the burning forehead! Quite an hour she sat in the same position, breathing out tones that only a mother ever learns, and the lad lay quiet and calm, looking up into her face with a pleased and satisfied expression, save when she moved as if to leave him for a moment, the paroxysm would seize him again. The physician came, and pronounced the disease brain-fever brought on by over-fatigue and exertion, and Kittie stood with her pitiful glance fastened upon him, and she knew then why he was so distressed the day before when he passed them as they sat in the carriage, and why the resignation and trust had gone.

He did not know her now, and her mother sent her home with the promise that she should come often, if he got better and would like to see her; but she remained day after day nursing him as his own mother would have done, until the mind was clear again, and he was conscious of her grateful presence. All through the long period of his delirium he had fancied that his mother's spirit was beside him ministering to his wants, and whenever she went from his sight, for a moment, he kept up a lamentable moaning until she was there again, and then he would lay for hours without even a murmur or a sound.

No wonder she felt a mysterious interest in the boy as he grew stronger, and would so often bend her steps to his humble dwelling to read or talk to him. And Kittie, too, desired no better reward for good behavior than to spend an hour at poor Archibald Mackie's. They had learned all about his history now, and he had told Mrs. Lincoln how much she had reminded him of the dead mother, and what a help her sympathy had been to him in his studies, and they had spoken of Willie and his troubles, and Archie forgot the sour face that had sent him away from the carriage, and thought only of the boy's crippled fate, so like his own. Like, and yet unlike—to the casual observer there was a vast difference between the forlorn, poverty-stricken, ragged Archie, and the petted, and pampered, and richly-clad Willie; but to the eye of the unwearied watcher who had witnessed the patience and the goodness of the sick lad, and contrasted it with the petulance and sinfulness of her nephew, the gifts of God were not unequally distributed.