Sleep,
yourself, dear, and dream of pleasant things; I am not very tired."
And Bess bent closer to her work, trying to sing a little song, that
they might not guess how near the tears were to her aching eyes.
From beneath his pillow Jamie drew a bit of bread, whispering to his
friend as he displayed it,--
"Give it to Bess; I saved it for her till you came, for she will not
take it from me, and she has eaten nothing all this day."
"And you, Jamie?" asked Walter, struck by the sharpened features of
the boy, and the hungry look which for a moment glistened in his
eye.
"I don't need much, you know, for I don't work like Bess; but yet
she gives me all. Oh, how can I bear to see her working so for me,
and I lying idle here!"
As he spoke, Jamie clasped his hands before his face, and through
his slender fingers streamed such tears as children seldom shed.
It was so rare a thing for him to weep that it filled Walter with
dismay and a keener sense of his own powerlessness. Ho could bear
any privation for himself alone, but he could not see them suffer.
He had nothing to offer them; for though there was seeming wealth in
store for him, he was now miserably poor. He stood a moment, looking
from brother to sister, both so dear to him, and both so plainly
showing how hard a struggle life had been to them.
With a bitter exclamation, the young man turned away and went out
into the night, muttering to himself,--
"They shall not suffer; I will beg or steal first.
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