After a sound night's rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped last night.

As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind host returned.
He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had told her of.

The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.
'No,' rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, 'no better.

They even say he is worse.' 'I am very sorry for that, Sir,' said the child.
The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; 'for my part,' he said, in his quiet, patient way, 'I hope it's not so.

I don't think he can be worse.' The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together.