Taken or Left by O.F. Walton

THAT evening, about seven o'clock, my mistress sent for me. I was shown into a beautiful room, with a carpet as soft as velvet, and all round the room there were lovely pictures, and photographs, and vases of hothouse flowers, and so many pretty and charming things, that I felt as if it was a strange dream that I was there, and that it could not be true.

Mrs. Tremayne was as beautiful and as good and as kind as Bagot had described her. She was sitting by the fire with her work when I went in, and on the other side of the fire, lying on a spring sofa, was the thinnest, whitest little boy I have ever seen. He looked just like a tiny skeleton dressed up in clothes, but, though his face was so pale and worn, it was a very beautiful little face, for he had large lovely eyes, that seemed as if they saw far more than our eyes see; they seemed to be looking at something very far away.