Winifred was not the Winifred of former days.

The rosy-cheeked, fat, laughing little roll-about of five years old, had changed by degrees into a slim, pale, very delicate-looking child of twelve.

Great nervous irritability, and weakness, they feared of the spine, had displaced the jocund health and sweet spirits which never knew a cloud.

It was a burden to them all, the change; and yet -- so strangely things are tempered -- the affections mustered round the family hearth to hide or repair the damage disease had done there, till it could scarcely be said to be poorer or worse off than before.

There did come a pang to every heart but Winifred's own, when they looked upon her; but with that rose so sweet and rare charities, blessing both the giver and the receiver, that neither perhaps was less blessed than of old.