“Oh! I am so tired! If I could only just get up once!” sighed Bonny-Gay.  
“Sick folks always have to stay in bed. How’d they look, sitting up, I’d like to know?” answered Mary Jane.
 
“But I’m not sick. I’m not sick one bit. I’m just as well as—as that parrot, yonder.”
 
“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth!” Polly.
 
Mary Jane laid down the thirteenth doll and clapped her hands to her sides. “That bird is the absurdest thing. He makes me laugh till I ache.”
 
“That’s a story, that’s a story!” corrected Poll.
 
“No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t!” mocked Mary Jane, .
 
Bonny-Gay laughed, too, and cried out:
“Mary Jane, you’re the very nicest girl I know!”
 
“Thank you. That’s a dear thing for you to say. But you’re partial, like mother. Besides, there isn’t any other girl here, just now.”
 
“But I mean it. There isn’t another girl in the world would come here and be shut up in the house, day after day, just to amuse me, ’cause my leg’s broken, except you.”
 
“Yes, there is,” said Mary Jane, confidently.
 
“Who?”
 
“You!”
 
“Oh! you funny child!”
 
“Wouldn’t you? If you and I were each other—I mean changed places and I was the sick one, wouldn’t you?”
 
“Maybe. I don’t know. I never did like indoors and would never stay in if I could help it. Do you s’pose it will be very long now?”
 
“No, I guess not. Not if you’re good and lie still. Wait. I’ll bring all the playthings around to that other side the bed and that will rest you. You’ve been looking out this way a good while now.”
 
So Mary Jane around and transported the thirteen dolls, the bird cages, and the parrot stand to a new position, and leaning on her gently helped the sick child to turn about as far as she was permitted to do. A trained nurse was still always in the room, and Mrs. McClure herself passed in and out very frequently; but it was Mary Jane who did most for her friend; Bonny-Gay declaring that, “Next to Mamma” there was nobody who understood her and desires without being told them, as the little cripple did.
 
“That’s because we’re just an age, I guess. Queer, wasn’t it? That you, up in this big house, and me down in my dear little one, should both be sent to our folks the very same day that ever was? ‘Sunday bairns’ should be the best ones in the world, my mother says. Only, I wasn’t in my street house when I came. I was in the country;” and for some unexplained reason Mary Jane’s sunny face clouded suddenly.
 
For weeks now, and because Bonny-Gay had “taken such an extreme fancy to her”—as Mrs. McClure had herself explained to Mrs. Bump, when she herself went to ask the favor of Mary Jane’s attendance in the sick room—the helpful child had spent the greater portion of each day there. It had become quite a matter of habit in Dingy street that a carriage should roll up to the door of 97 and that Mary Jane should go away in it; to be returned at six o’clock , of the same afternoon. Dingy street felt itself proud of this state of things, and every householder held her head a bit higher because of it. Who’d ever have dreamed that their own small hunchback would get to be “carriage folks?” Well, there was no telling when such glory might not fall to their own lot, and she’d do them all credit wherever she went, she had such pretty, loving ways with her. That she had.
 
Now, it was sometimes an inconvenience to the McClure household that this trip must be made twice a day; and that very morning Mrs. McClure entered the to speak with Mary Jane about it. She had now overcome her first at sight of the little body and saw only the sweet face and helpfulness. She had, also, offered Mrs. Bump some compensation for her daughter’s “services; just the same as any other nurse’s;” but the poorer mother gently declined.
 
“If the dear Lord has given her a chance to do something for your girl, whom she so loves, I guess He means it as a sort of compensation to her for her own afflictions. No, indeed, Mrs. McClure, I wouldn’t like to the sympathy between those two by any thought of money.”
 
To this there could be no answer, and so the matter rested.
 
“Mary Jane, we begin to feel almost as if you belonged with us, you have been so kind and good to Bonny-Gay; and what do you say to staying up here at night, now? At least for a few nights together, with then one at home?” asked the lady, as she sat down beside the cot and watched the undressing of the china seventh doll, preparatory to its bath.
 
Mary Jane looked up quickly, with a sort of fear coming into her telltale face.
 
“Oh! I shouldn’t like that. I mean—of course, you’re very kind—but I’d have to go home. I would, indeed.”
 
“It’s not kindness on my part, especially. I thought it might save trouble to both sides; but, never mind. We’ll go on as usual, for the present; though I wish you would speak to your mother about it, when you see her, this evening. Now, Bonny-Gay, I have to go out. Is there anything you fancy, that I can bring you? I shall be at market and do some shopping. Think and see, darling.”
 
Bonny-Gay’s eyes had rested searchingly upon Mary Jane’s face. She would have been delighted herself if her playmate could have remained all the time in the Place, but she saw the sudden fear and was puzzled by it. Yet she did not urge the matter, and the only request she made of her indulgent mother was:
 
“Just bring something new for the baby.”
 
Again Mary Jane’s face was troubled and she exclaimed:
 
“Please, Bonny-Gay don’t! He has too many things already, that you have sent him. I’d rather not, please.”
 
“Very well,” said Mrs. McClure, as she kissed her little girl and went away. But she was annoyed. She felt that she did not exactly “know how to deal with that class of people,” to which Mary Jane belonged. She wished that Bonny-Gay had not taken this absurd fancy of hers. She wished that the Gray Gentleman had never done that unwise thing of carrying her daughter into the region and knowledge of Dingy street. It was all very well for him to devote his time still, as he had all his life and fortune, toward making the lives of poor children brighter. Everybody must have a hobby, and that was his, she supposed. Of course, he was a noble man, and his name was known far and wide as that of a philanthropist. Still—Hmm. It would soon end, anyway. Bonny-Gay was improving rapidly, and was so healthy that there was nothing to fear. And if she needed her own carriage that evening, and Mary Jane remained still , she must be sent home in a cab. That was all.
 
With these thoughts she departed, but she had in some way left an altered atmosphere behind her. Her difficulty in understanding “that class of people” arose from the simple fact that she had, as yet, no real sympathy with them. It seemed to her that they were altogether different from herself; that they were duller, less capable of any true nobility. But she was, in reality, kind and good at heart, with many social cares to tax her nerves, and she was one day to have her present ignorance enlightened.
 
In the silence that followed her exit, Bonny-Gay’s hand stole softly out and touched Mary Jane’s cheek, down which a tear was rolling. And in the child’s touch was that perfect sympathy which the mother’s tone had lacked.
 
“Don’t cry, Mary Jane. He’ll come back.”
 
Mary Jane’s head lifted instantly and her face brightened.
 
“How’d you know ’twas that I was thinking about?”
 
“Oh! I knew. After a minute. Not just at first. Mother didn’t understand. I don’t s’pose she’s heard yet that he was gone. Move up nearer. Fix yourself comf’table. Let’s talk, instead of play dolls, now.”
 
Mary Jane pushed her low chair to the side of the cot, so close now that she could rest her head against Bonny-Gay’s own pillow.
 
“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth!” Polly, and in their laughter at his command they failed to hear that somebody had entered the room and sat down quite near them. This was Bonny-Gay’s father, and he liked sometimes to surprise her by an unexpected visit of this sort, as well as to listen to the innocent of this pair of “Sunday bairns.”
 
“How long is it, Mary Jane?”
 
“It was the very day you were hurt. Two whole weeks.”
 
“Well. That’s all right. Max is with him, isn’t he?”
 
“I don’t know. He went away with him. They both felt bad, I guess. That made them like to be together. Father’s powerful fond of dogs, any way.”
 
“And of the country, you said, too. I s’pose he’s in the country somewheres.”
 
“But where! I do want to see him so much. There is something I must tell him. Something he thinks is wrong, something that made him feel bad but should not. Something—Oh! I’ve seen all through things so clear, since he went. Every time he saw me I s’pose he was reminded that—My sake! What am I saying. But I’m so sorry about your mother not to send for me. I must have bothered her no end. I wouldn’t have come only—”
 
“You wouldn’t have come? Why, it was I who wanted you, who must have you. Don’t you know, you are my ‘twin sister?’ It’s all right. Mother would give me anything to have me pleased. Don’t think a thing about that. Let’s talk about the rest. Say, Mary Jane, say!” Excitedly.
 
“There you are. Off you go! Have a care!” warned Polly.
 
“Oh! keep still, you bird. Listen, Mary Jane. You know I’m going to the country, don’t you? We all are, just as soon as I get well.”
 
“Yes. I think it will be just lovely for you.”
 
“For you, too, you go with me and—find him!” almost shouted Bonny-Gay.
 
“Oh! you darling! Might I?”
 
“Course. Why shouldn’t you? My father owns a lot of country. Ever and ever so much. He has so much he says it’s a sin and shame it isn’t doing anybody any good. But he’s too busy to tend to it himself and he can’t trust many folks. They would waste his money, dreadful. There’s our big house and park, and all the gardens and things; and then there are fields and fields and fields. Miles of them, I guess. Just as like as not he’s gone around there some place. Just supposing! If he has, why, pooh! You could find him in a minute. Oh! you must go with me and look. ............