A bitter shriek rang from her that made even the cruelty of Lisa's mirth
stop in a sudden terror.
She stood staring like a thing changed to stone down on the one name that
to her rilled all the universe.
"Ill--he is ill--do you hear?" she echoed piteously, looking at Lisa;
"and you say he is poor?"
"Poor? for sure! is he not a painter?" said the fruit girl, roughly. She
judged by her own penniless student lads; and she was angered with
herself for feeling sorrow for this little silly thing that she had loved
to torture.
"You have been bad and base to me; but now--I bless you, I love you, I
will pray for you," said Bebee, in a swift broken breath, and with a look
upon her face that startled into pain her callous enemy.
Then without another word, she thrust the paper in her bosom, and ran out
of the square breathless with haste and with a great resolve.
He was ill--and he was poor! The brave little soul of her leaped at once
to action. He was sick, and far away; and poor they said. All danger and
all difficulty faded to nothing before the vision of his need.
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