Presently he asked, ‘Could I see Nancy, one day soon?’

’She comes, on her way to school, every day to ask how you are.  Poor little maid! she’s taken on dreadful about your illness, and wouldn’t eat her food when you were so ill.  Her mother got quite anxious about her.  We’ll send for her in a day or two, if you keep well.’  And two days after Nancy appeared.  She came up to the big chair very shyly, and looked with awe upon Teddy’s white, wasted face; then she cried impulsively,—­

’Oh, button-boy, will you ever, ever forgive me?  If you had died, I should have killed you!’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Teddy, putting up his face and kissing her.  ’I was just as naughty; I shouldn’t have tried to fight with you.’

‘I go to the river every day,’ Nancy went on sorrowfully, ’and Farmer Green brought a big net one day and dragged up a lot of stones and old tin pans, but the button wasn’t there.  I hope it will be washed ashore one day, and so I look along the banks, but I haven’t seen a sign of it yet!’

‘I’m asking God to give it back to me every day,’ said Teddy, with a little decided nod, ’and I think He’ll do it.  You ask Him too, Nancy, and perhaps He’ll do it quicker.’

’I’ve asked God every day to make you better, and I promised Him if He would do it I would be the Captain’s soldier.  Yes, I did, and I said I would give up being a sailor, and be just a soldier, like you are.’

Nancy made this statement with great solemnity, and Teddy beamed with delight.

‘And are you really enlisted?’

’I don’t quite know, but I’m trying to be good, and I ask Jesus to help me every day.’

Then there was silence.  Nancy sat down on the rug, and took the large tabby cat on her lap.

‘Did you think you was going to die?’ she asked presently.

’I didn’t think nothing at all till I woke up, and saw mother crying over me, and then I felt dreadful tired and ill.  I asked her one day where she would bury me, for I was sure I was much too ill to get better, and she—­well, she smiled, and said God was making me stronger every day.  I didn’t feel I was better a bit.’

‘Would you like to have died and gone to heaven?’

‘Yes,’ Teddy answered promptly, ‘of course I should.  Wouldn’t you?’

Nancy shook her head.  ’I might if I was quite sure the angel would carry me safely all the way without dropping me, or leaving me in the clouds before we got there; but I think I like to live here best.  Besides, I don’t think I’m good enough to go to heaven yet.’

’I don’t think it’s being good gets us to heaven.  Jesus died to let us, you know, like the hymn says,—­

“Jesus loves me!  He who died
 Heaven’s gate to open wide;
 He will wash away my sin,
 Let His little child come in.”

Have you asked Him to forgive you, Nancy?’

Nancy nodded.  ’Yes, when you was so ill.  I felt I had been so wicked that
God was punishing me.’