"Oh, I thought it wur," he said, closing his eyes with a look of pain. And Mrs. Fisher's eyes became moist, as she saw the big tears stealing out under the lashes, and rolling slowly down the pale wasted cheeks.

After a while Benny fell into a sound sleep, from which he did not awake till morning. When the doctor came next day he rubbed his hands with glee.

"Never had but one case before to equal it!" he said, "but it's wonderful what children will pull through: just as you think they are going right over the precipice, they turn round, and coolly walk back into health."

"Do you think he will get better?" said Mrs. Fisher.

"More likely than not," was the reply: "the tide has turned, evidently. He had reached the crisis when you thought he was dying last night, and instead of kicking the beam, why, here he is ever so much better."

From that day Benny got better. Not rapidly; no, it was a slow coming back to health; still, he did get better. Day by day he gathered strength, though scarcely perceptible at times. The doctor rather wondered at this, for he expected his recovery to be much more rapid. But the secret lay in the fact that Benny did not want to get better. And one day, about a week after the time of which we have spoken, he positively refused to take his medicine.

"But it is to make you better," said Mrs. Fisher gently.

"But I dunna want to get better," said Benny; "I wants to go to heaven."

"But you should be willing to wait the Lord's time, Benny."

"I's waited so long," he said fretfully, "that I's tired of waitin'."

"But it's wrong to murmur at what is God's will, Benny."

"Are it?" he said. "I didn't know, but I's very tired."

"But you'll get rested after a while, if you'll be patient."

"Ah, then," he said, with a sigh, "I mun try, I s'pose."

But in spite of Benny's anxiety to die, health and strength came back to him day by day, and one beautiful July Sabbath afternoon he was dressed, for the first time, in a suit of dead Rob's clothes, and carried into another room, and placed in an easy chair by the window, that he might feast his eyes on the beautiful landscape that stretched out before him. Benny submitted to the process without speaking a word, for he was still very weak; but after he had recovered himself a little, he looked curiously at the clothes in which he was enveloped, as if not at all certain of his identity.

"I reckon I's not Benny Bates," he said at length.

"Oh, yes, you are," said Mrs. Fisher, who had been watching him with an amused smile upon her face.

"Then," he said, looking up, "these is not my togs."

"No; but I think I'll give them to you, Benny."