‘Ay, he has gone and done it now,’ she returned, with a touch of motherly feeling; ’it was a slide those bad boys had made, and Robbie came down on it with his crutch under him.  He is always in trouble, is Robbie, has had more illnesses than all the children put together; there is nothing Robin can’t take:  whooping-cough,—­why, he nearly whooped himself to death; measles and scarlet fever,—­why, he was as nearly gone as possible, the doctor said.  He has always been puny and weakly from a baby.  But there’s Bell, now, makes more of a fuss over Rob than over the others; if there is anything that will keep him away from the Man and Plough, it is Rob asking him to take him out somewhere.’

‘Ay, father’s promised to sit with me this evening,’ observed Robin, in a faint little treble.

‘Then we must make the room comfortable for father,’ I said quickly.  ’Mrs. Bell, I must not hinder you any more; but if you could spare one of the girls to help me tidy up a little.’

‘Ay, Sally can come,’ she returned; ’the place does look like a piggery.  You see, Tom and Ned and Willie sleep here along of Robin, and boys know naught about keeping a place tidy; Sally reds it up towards evening.  But there, doctor said Robbie must have a fire, and I’ve clean forgotten it:  I will send up Sally with some sticks and a lump or two of coal.’

Mrs. Bell was not a bad sort of woman, certainly, but, like many of her class, she was not a good manager; and when a woman has ten children, and a husband rather too fond of the Man and Plough, and is obliged to stand at her washing-tub for hours every day, one cannot expect to find the house in perfect order.

We had soon a bright little fire burning, which gave quite a cheery aspect to the large bare attic; the sloping roof and small window did not seem to matter so much.  With Sally’s help I moved Robin’s little bed to a lighter part of the room, where the roof did not slope so much, and where the wintry sunlight could reach him.  Robin seemed much pleased with this change of position, and when I had washed and made him comfortable he declared that he felt ‘first-rate.’

I had so much to do for my patient that I was obliged to let Sally tidy up the room in her usual scrambling way.  The child had been sadly neglected by that time, and he was getting faint.  I had to prepare some arrow-root for his dinner, and then hurry off to the Marshalls’ before I had my own.  I was obliged to omit my visit to Phoebe that day, and divide my time between Mrs. Marshall and Robin.  When I had given Robin his tea, and had put a chair by the fire for father, I went off, feeling that I could leave him more comfortably.  The eldest boy, Tom, a big, strapping lad of fourteen, who went to work, had promised to keep the other boys quiet, ‘that the little chap might not be disturbed,’ and as Robin again declared that he felt first-rate, if it weren’t for his arm, I hoped that he might be able to sleep.