This morning, the bishop, noting the boy's pale cheeks and heavy eyes,
proposed a walk instead of the writing lesson. Tode was delighted to
go, and the two set off together. Now the boy had an opportunity to
see yet farther into the heart and life of this good, great man. They
went on and on, away from the wide streets and handsome houses, into
the tenement house district, and finally into an old building, where
many families found shelter--such as it was. Up one flight after
another of rickety stairs the bishop led the boy. At last he stopped
and knocked at a door on a dark landing.
The door was opened by a woman whose eyes looked as if she had
forgotten how to smile, but a light flashed into them at sight of her
visitor. She hurriedly dusted a chair with her apron, and as the
bishop took it he lifted to his knee one of the little ones clinging
to the mother's skirts. There were four little children, but one lay,
pale and motionless on a bed in one corner of the room.
"She is sick?" inquired the bishop, his voice full of sympathy, as he
looked at the small, wan face.
The woman's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes," she answered, "I doubt I'm goin' to lose her, an' I feel I
ought to be glad for her sake--but I can't." She bent over the little
form and kissed the heavy eyelids.
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