CHAPTER III.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
A winter had passed away, and one of our ungenial springs, always unkind to invalids, was wearing to the last days of May. Charlotte's disease was aggravated by long confinement, and as she sat tailing over an old coat of her father's, her eye turned sadly towards the cold sky and the thinly-clad boughs of the trees that were rustling against the window, and that, like her, seemed pining for warmth and sunshine. "Will summer ever come?" she thought; and then, suppressing a sigh of impatience, she added, "but I don't mean to murmur." At this moment Susan bounded into the room, her cheek flushed with pleasure.
"Good news, good news!" she cried, clapping her hands; "Harry has got home!"
"Has he?"
"Why, Lottie, you don't seem a bit joyful!"
The tears came to Charlotte's eyes. "I have got to be a poor creature indeed," she said, "when the news of Harry's getting home does not make me joyful."
"Oh, but Lottie, it's only because you did not sleep last night: take a little of your mixture and lie down, and by the time Harry gets up here—he told me he should come right up—you will look glad; I am sure you feel so now."
