situated on a rather steep hill, and at the foot of it was the bridge to which it owed its name crossing the river that flowed through the town. It was not an unpleasant street as streets go, but that is not saying much for it.

There were some good houses at the lower end, near the quays, which ran along by the side of the river, but it was not in one of these that May Cunningham lived. The houses became much smaller towards the top of the hill, and the street was not a wide one.

"No. 25, Bridge Street" had May, ever since she could read writing, seen written on the letters that came to her father and mother, and No. 25, Bridge Street certainly was not a spacious mansion to live in. But though very small, it was neat, and it never occurred to May that she might be happier in different home.

She had always been happy, and she did not know that her life was an uncommonly dull one.

Her father had a little room in which he sat writing during most of the day, but whenever she saw him he had a smile and a kind word for her, and she knew that he loved her very dearly.

He wrote papers for several of the magazines, and articles for the Cherriton newspaper, and he used to bring his writings in the evening, and read them to May's mother, who listened with glad attention, and criticised and praised, and then the sheets were sewn together by her at the left hand corner, and carefully folded up, directed, and posted.

When May was a very little girl, she used to be sent to bed before these pleasant readings began. The door of her tiny bed-room up-stairs was always left open that she "might feel mamma near her," as she said, and after kind mamma had tucked her up in bed and kissed her, she would say, "Now, darling, I am going down to hear papa say his lessons;" and sometimes before May had gone fast asleep, which she generally did very soon, she could, if it were a summer evening, and the parlour door were open as well as her bed-room door, hear her papa's voice murmuring on, though she could not distinguish the words that he said, and then perhaps mamma's voice would stop his, with an eager exclamation or a gay laugh.

It was on her birthday when she was five years old, and considered that she had attained a great age and was quite a grown-up woman, that her mamma asked her what her birthday treat should be.

"You are old enough to choose your own treat, and know what you like best," said kind mamma. "Think over all the treats. Will you have out your little tea-things and make tea for papa and me? or shall we take some sandwiches and eat them in the fields, instead of dinner? or will you ask Sophy Smith to spend the afternoon with you? Think over all these, and choose."

It is a very delightful thing when you are five years old to be told to think over all the treats, and choose whichever of them you like best.

Choice is always pleasant, and choice among treats is pleasantest of all.

But May pursed up her small rosy mouth till a fourpenny-bit was larger than it was, and shook her head at everything her mamma proposed.

For the fact was she had made up her mind long before what treat she would have on her birthday if her mamma gave her the chance by asking her to choose one for herself.

Of course she was to have a holiday-I suppose few little girls do lessons on their birthdays—that was a matter of course; and of course there was to be a cake for tea, which her kind mamma had made with her own hands the day before, and into which she had put so many dear, tiny black Smyrna currants that May laughed with delight when she saw it.

But besides the holiday, and besides the cake, she was to choose a birthday treat. And she had her answer to her mamma's questions ready the moment she had done talking.

She shook her head at every proposal, and then, when no more proposals came, she said suddenly, "Please, may I sit up to hear papa say his lessons?" Her mamma looked, quite astonished, and then began to laugh.

"You would not understand a word he said, my pet," she replied. "You would get tired, and beg

me to put you to bed."

But May begged so hard that this might be her treat, and said she wished it so very much, that her mamma consented. And the grandeur of the position was so superlatively charming that she did not feel tired, and did not want to go to bed. And after that night the greatest pleasure that could be given her, or the greatest reward if she had been particularly good about anything, was to sit up for papa's lessons. When she had her two front teeth extracted, because Mr. Benson, the dentist, said the second teeth would not come properly unless the first were whisked out of their place by his little shining instruments, her mamma offered to make her a new bonnet for her doll with a bit of bright blue ribbon, and her papa said he would give her a penny apiece for her teeth, but she firmly refused the much longed-for bonnet and the welcome pennies, and chose to hear papa say his lessons instead.

Some little girls, if they are in the habit of receiving shillings or even half-crowns for theirs, may think it was rather shabby and mean of Mr. Cunningham only to give two pennies for his daughter's two teeth but I may as well tell them at once that May's papa was very poor, and had hardly enough money to live upon, and that pennies were quite as much to May as shillings or halfcrowns can possibly be to little girls whose papas happen to be rich.

May, when she was allowed to hear him say his lessons, used to sit on her stool on the rug, as quiet as a little mouse, except that when her mamma laughed she always laughed too, or when her mamma

exclaimed at anything her small voice made itself heard along with her mamma's, and her papa would sometimes stop and pat her curly head, or kiss it, saying, "And very much indeed you know about it, little lady, don't you?"

“Yes, papa, very much indeed," she would reply quite seriously, and then he would go on with his lessons?

But as May grew older the time came when sitting up to hear papa say his lessons ceased to be a treat, because she did it every night, but she never ceased to consider that evening hour the pleasantest part of the day, not even when she began to understand what he read, and to make remarks on it, which both her papa and mamma encouraged her to do.

May could recollect her mamma, so young and pretty, with straight upright figure, a pink colour in her cheeks, and a quantity of light brown hair twisted round and round her head-such a quantity that it seemed as if the little head were hardly large enough to hold it all.

Very slowly, so that May did not notice it at all, her poor mamma got thin and pale, her figure began to stoop, and her shining locks fell off, while here and there a grey hair appeared through them. Instead of running about, always busy and always gay, she grew graver and quieter, she walked slowly, and sometimes put her hand on her side when she walked, and she sat down often while busy in the house-work (for she only kept one servant, and did a great deal of the work herself), and even on the stairs sometimes, as if she were so tired that she just dropped down wherever she was.

She gave up taking long walks in the pleasant evenings, and never chased May through the fields, scattering daisies and buttercups over her, or turning the hay about in that delicious time when hayricks abound; and by degrees she hardly walked at all, and even in the house she kept very still, and lay constantly on the little sofa her own hands had covered with a pretty chintz in the parlour.

Sometimes Mr. Cunningham brought Doctor Evans to see her, and then May was always sent out of the room.

And Mr. Cunningham was much graver than he used to be, and a careworn look came into his bright kind eyes, while little lines and wrinkles formed round them and across his broad forehead, and he watched his wife with anxious love, trying to save her from every exertion and to do everything for her.

And May learned to wait on her mamma, and to dust the rooms and help Jane make the beds, and to be of as much use as she could.

And May's mamma was always cheerful and

kind, and never said a cross word or gave a cross look to any one, and always had a bright smile for papa when he came into the room, and often even a laugh and a joke.

For papa had still to spend most of his time writing in the little study; but May knew now that he was not preparing his lessons, but that what he wrote was published in books and in newspapers, and that he was paid money for it, and that with the money he was paid he bought the food they ate and the clothes they wore, and paid the wages of the servant Jane.

CHAPTER II-A FAINTING-FIT AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES.

MAY was a great girl now. She was eleven years old, and she was quite a companion to her mamma during all the hours that her father wrote in his study.

She had long pleasant talks with her as they both sat at their needlework, and she read aloud to her sometimes. She was a busy little woman too, helping in the house in all ways that she could think of.

Sometimes she wrote notes for her mamma, who would say, "Oh, what a pity! Mrs. Jones's letter must be answered to-day. She wants that knitting pattern, and it is quite unkind not to send it; but I feel so weak I can't write a line. May, dear, do you think you could manage that note for me?"

At first May felt shy and afraid when this sort of thing happened, and she had to write to a grownup lady. Her mamma wrote such a pretty hand too, and hers was such a queer unformed scrawl that she was quite ashamed of it. She took great pains to improve, and by degrees wrote much better; and her mamma at length told her that it was legible and neat, and would do very well till she had acquired a firmer hand.

When Mr. Cunningham was shown how very nicely May could write the whole of a letter he was very much pleased, and he said, laughing, "Well done, little scribe! Why, I shall be making you write at my dictation one of these days, when I am preparing my lessons and my poor hand is cramped by using the pen."

Mr. Cunningham's work for the press was always called his lessons, and when he said this I believe May had never felt so happy in all the eleven years she had lived in the world; and I assure you those eleven years appeared to her like a very long time indeed.

The idea of being able to write for her papa was so delightful that it seemed hardly possible it could be true.

Then her mamma stroked her hair fondly, and

said, "May is such a useful girl she is quite my right hand already."

May kissed the dear hand that caressed her, and felt that nothing could make her so happy as helping this delightful mamma and papa, in every way in her power.

One evening in the summer Mrs. Cunningham lay on the sofa, which she seldom left now. Mr. Cunningham was saying his lessons, and happy May was stitching a wristband for one of a set of shirts for him, that she was helping her mamma and Jane to make. It had been a glorious hot June day, and they now sat with both window and door open, to enjoy as much as they could in a little house in a street, of the sweet, evening breezes that are so delicious on the hillside or in a wild flowery glen.

It still felt very hot in that little room, and the view from their window of a row of houses just like the one they were in, on the other side of a not wide and dusty street, made it feel hotter still. Mr. Cunningham gave rather a languid attention to his lessons, and as he read aloud made rather an absurd mistake. Perhaps he was thinking of something else rather than of the subject he read about.

It was an illustration in a newspaper article, and the words he had written were these :-"Like a good voice joined to a bad ear, which is as great a misfortune as a man or his friends can be visited by."

But what he read was:-"Like a good voice joined to a bad ear, which is as great a misfortune as Fairfield can be visited by."

"Fairfield, papa!" cried May, laughing. “Why, who is he? You have never once mentioned him before."

"Did I say Fairfield?" he replied, astonished. "Why, I must be dreaming."

"No-hush! but mamma is," said May softly, with her finger on her lips. "Mamma is asleep."

Mr. Cunningham looked at his wife, and the calm expression in his face changed to one of alarm, almost of terror.

Mrs. Cunningham lay back on the sofa. The work she had been trying to do had slipped from her fingers on to the ground, her hands hung listlessly down, her face was as white as the loose wrapper she wore, her eyes were shut, there was no movement about her, she did not breathe.

Her husband sprang to her side. "She has fainted!" he cried.

He seized the bottle of smelling-salts, and held it to her nose with one hand, while he rang the bell violently with the other.

"May, run at once to Doctor Evans, and beg him to step up here instantly. Tell him your mother

has fainted," he said, in a voice May hardly recognised as his; "and send Jane up to me as you go out."

She obeyed without the least hesitation. She was never sent on messages or errands by herself, her mamma always making Jane do this part of the work, and letting May open the door if any one happened to knock at it whilst Jane was out. But she was thinking so much of her mamma, and was so frightened at her having fainted and at her father's manner, that it never occurred to her to give a thought to having to go through the town alone. In fact, poor May was so alarmed about her mamma that she did not even think enough of herself, for hastily calling to Jane to go to papa directly-" directly Jane, mamma is ill," she opened the house door and ran out into the street, without remembering to put on her hat or gloves.

Her long bright hair hung down on her shoulders in natural curls, and with no other covering on her head she ran up Bridge Street and across High Street into Feversham Square, which was the fashionable part of the town in which Doctor Evans lived, and she never paused for breath, nor looked to her right hand nor to her left, till she found herself on the top of the steps of No. 5, the doctor's house.

Nor did she even stop there; for the door being ajar, she pushed it open and walked straight into the dining-room, where the doctor sat alone in his easy chair, sipping his glass of claret, and reading his newspaper.

A white cloth covered the table, strawberries and other fruits were in the cool china dishes, a bunch of exquisite roses filled a silver vase in the centre: the room was at the back of the house, with a large window opening into a conservatory full of brilliant flowers. The doctor sat amid these pleasant surroundings, sipping his claret and reading his paper, cool and refreshed after the fatigues of the day, looking the very picture of comfort.

Hot, breathless, her hair hanging about her, no hat on, with red cheeks, and eyes full of tears, Mr. Cunningham's little daughter stood before him.

He raised his eyes, amazed; but medical men require to have their wits about them, and Doctor Evans had not become the principal practitioner in Cherriton by letting his go from him.

"May Cunningham!" he exclaimed, utterly surprised the first second; but in the next he added, "Is your mamma ill?"

"She has fainted," was the panting reply. Doctor Evans glanced at his slippered feet.

"I will be with you in two minutes," he cried, and, placing the dish of strawberries before her, "eat these while I am gone," he said kindly.

Poor May! I need hardly say that she was very

fond of strawberries; who is not? certainly no little girl that I ever heard of, especially not a little girl who lived in a town, and whose papa had no money to buy fruit for her. Now and then a present of strawberries might be made to Mrs. Cunningham, and then May always got her share, but it was a rare treat and a great one.

She wished ardently now that she might take some of these-red, ripe, and beautiful as they were -home to that dear mamma; she could imagine no better remedy for a fainting-fit than a plate of strawberries. She was sure they would cure her if she had fainted away ever so much.

But she could not touch one of them herself—no, not even one. She felt as if it would choke her.

She could not allow herself a great treat, such a treat as strawberries, while her mamma was ill and her papa was frightened, and she had also a sort of instinct that there would be something dishonourable when her papa had sent her on an errand, and such an errand as this, to take advantage of it by eating strawberries; so she stood in front of the dish and looked at the tempting fruit, neither touching them nor wishing to touch them.

Back came the doctor.

"Hallo!" he cried, glancing from her to the dish and from the dish to her. Then in an incredulous tone of inquiry, "You don't like strawberries?"

May could hardly speak; her mouth felt dry, her lips almost refused to open.

"Mamma!" she said, that was all.

“Oh, mamma!" he replied; "is that it? Well, perhaps you'll eat some of them with mamma byand-by then. She has just fainted from the heat, you know. There, let's tumble them in."

And he took up a basket that stood on the table, emptied the dish of strawberries into it, and handed it to her.

She smiled at that, and took them willingly. "Thank you so much," she said.

"I think you are a very good little girl," said Doctor Evans, as they set off together towards Bridge Street; "but tell me now about mamma fainting; how did it happen? what was she doing?

"She was lying on the sofa quite quiet, and papa was reading to us, and all of a sudden I thought she was asleep, and papa said she had fainted, and sent me off here, and I ran."

"Oh, well, we'll find her better again when we get there; it was just the hot weather, you see, and she is not very strong."

"She used to be strong," said May; “she used to run and dance about the house, and now she lies almost always on the sofa, and is quite always tired. Why is she always tired, Doctor Evans?"

Doctor Evans was saved from answering this