CHAPTER III.
"It was to her a real _grief of heart_, acute, as children's sorrows often are.
"We beheld this from the opposite windows--and, seen thus from a little distance, how many of our own and of other people's sorrows might not seem equally trivial, and equally deserving of ridicule!" HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
When Bill got home he found the household busy with a much more practical subject than that of ghosts and haunted yew-trees.

Bessy was ill.

She had felt a pain in her side all the day, which towards night had become so violent that the doctor was sent for, who had pronounced it pleurisy, and had sent her to bed.

He was just coming downstairs as Bill burst into the house.

The mother was too much occupied about her daughter to notice the lad's condition; but the doctor's sharp eyes saw that something was amiss, and he at once inquired what it was.