I cannot walk, you know, but I am very well indeed." "You cannot walk ?" stammered Hilda.
The girl saw her look of horror, and a faint color stole into her wan cheek.

"Did not Bubble tell you ?" she asked, gently; and then, as Hilda shook her head, "It is such a matter of course to him," she said; "he never thinks about it, I suppose, dear little fellow.

I was run over when I was three years old, and I have never been able to walk since." Hildegarde could not speak.

The thought of anything so dreadful, so overwhelming as this, coming so suddenly, too, upon her, seemed to take away her usually ready speech, and she was dumb, gazing at the cheerful face before her with wide eyes of pity and wonderment.

But Pink Chirk did not like to be pitied, as a rule; and she almost laughed at her visitor's horror-stricken face.
"You mustn't look so!" she cried.