Blue! blue! blue! oh dear, I do feel blue, and so does every one else, even the kitten! In the first place the house is cold. We have not been able to get the dining-room above 58° at any time to-day, and the boarders appear to believe that we keep it at that cosey temperature out of pure spite and malevolence.

“My friend Mrs. Bo-gardus considers it a stupid form of suicide to economise coal in such weather,” Mrs. Hudson remarked this morning. We had not been economising, but nevertheless we felt crushed; for whenever Mrs. Hudson has a criticism to make it comes under cover of the same potent Name,—perhaps I don’t spell it quite correctly, but so it is invariably pronounced. None of us have ever met Mrs. Bo-gardus, none of us ever expect to meet her,—she is a sort of cousin to the famous “Mrs. Harris,” we are sometimes tempted to believe,—but it is through her reported remarks that we are given the coveted, if immensely overestimated, advantage of “seeing ourselves as others see us.”

This morning’s none too flattering vision resulted in Haze being sent down to shake up the furnace;—which did not prevent Miss Brown from wearing her pink knitted shawl all day, and sniffing, and rubbing the red tip of her nose. Just why these artless actions should have enraged me I don’t know; but, somehow, they did.

As Ernie once sagely remarked,—“However innocent a boarder’s habits, they are bound to be unpleasing.”

Then, too, I broke a string of my mandolin, and I have not five cents in the world with which to buy another. It is almost amusing to be as poor as that. Also, Haze is growing cross as well as homely, because it does not agree with him to study late at night.

Last evening when I put on my golf-cape and ran up to the workshop for a little chat I found the poor boy sitting in the flying-machine with his overcoat on,—it is cold in the workshop, let me tell you,—pegging away at his Latin. He looked up over his glasses and scowled at me.

“Won’t it make you dream worse than ever to sit there, dear?” I asked.

“The sails keep the draughts off,” answered Hazard in sepulchral tones.

“What are you studying, Haze?” I ventured next.

“My lessons,” came the communicative croak.

Nice, chummy conversation that! So I retired.

But I suppose I may as well be honest and admit that none of the reasons I have mentioned yet have anything to do with making me unhappy. It is about Robin. We ought to take such good care of him,—and we can’t! Thursday he caught cold sitting on the draughty floor; and, as usual, it settled in his little lame side. So mother kept him in bed yesterday morning, and I amused him with games and stories;—but after lunch he grew feverish and tired.

“Would you like me to read again, Bobsie?” I asked.

“No, thank you, honey,” he answered, and turned his head wearily among the pillows.

“Would you like to play ‘Tommy-Come-Tickle-Me,’ or ‘Thumbs Up’?”

“No, dear, they aren’t a bit of good when your legs ache. Sing, please.”

“What shall I sing?” I asked.

“About Heaven,” said Bobsie,—“like we did last Sunday night.”

It wasn’t a bit priggish, the way he said it,—just simple, and wistful, and very sweet.

So I took him in my arms in the big rocking-chair and sang all the heaven hymns I know. First, “There’s a Home for Little Children,” then “Jerusalem the Golden,” and,

When I came to that last beautiful verse,

the thought flashed through me, “What if God should really take Robin from us,—him, too, as well as father!” And I stopped singing, and hugged him tight, and hurt his little, aching back!

“What’s the matter, Elizabeth?” asked Bobsie, fretfully. “I was just going to sleep.”

“Nothing, honey,” I answered.

But that night after I had gone to bed the terror returned, and I could not get any peace or rest. I could not say my prayers right, either, for it seemed as if heaven were full of harping, and singing voices, and God would not hear. So I tossed and turned, till finally I woke Ernie.

“What’s the matter, Elizabeth?” she asked, just as Robin had.

“Oh, Ernie,” I answered. “I’m so unhappy! I’ve been thinking that perhaps Bobsie is going to die.”

“Well, of course we’re all going to some day,” answered Ernie, sleepily. But she slipped her hand into mine like a cuddlesome kitten, and somehow I felt comforted.

Dr. Porter says that what Robin needs is “all the luxuries.” That is, to go away in the summer to the seashore or mountains, to have good nourishing food, proper clothing, and plenty of fresh air all the year round, and neither to be overstimulated nor worried. Nice possible prescription, that! Uncle George means to do what is right, I am sure; but, oh, why can’t he say,—

“Here is $5,000. Take it, and make Robin well.” If it were Georgie who was ill!

That reminds me that Geof was in this afternoon, quite sulky and injured because he had to go to the opera this evening.

“Meta has a friend staying with her,” he explained. “And they prance round and see everything. That’s all right; but why do they have to lug me along?”

“Poor Geof,” purred Ernie, who is always sympathetic. “What is it going to be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Geoffrey. “They’re all the same. A fellow in pink pants gets up and bellows at the top of his lungs,—‘Ish leap a dish!’ The lady answers to the same tune, only shriller, and then they both die. Giddy show that!”

We could not help laughing; but how I wish I were going in Geof’s place!

Mother would be sorry if she could see what I have written to-day. I think she would call it cowardly. She always faces things so bravely, dear mother!—and if she can be cheerful and light-hearted I am sure the rest of us should be. I’ll try,—I will,—I will,—whatever comes!