Jessie hated them all, hated everybody. There grew up in the little girl's heart during the next twelve months a bitterness which will never die out. She lay and brooded over it and nursed it, and had nothing to distract her from it. Her mother is not one of those who come up in the middle of the night to see if their darlings are sleeping, and kiss them and talk to them, or kneel and pray beside them. No one ever knew all those long, terrible, wakeful night-hours, when she cried to herself, with deep sobs -suppressed so that nurse should not wake up and hear them, and soothe her with the old phrases that she knew and rebelled against. Poor Jessie! Of course the time will come when she is pronounced cured, when she is bidden to arise and walk ; already she is allowed to sit up a certain number of hours in the day. But she is almost past caring, her spirits are crushed, and she will never be a happy, careless child again. There is a canker in her bud of life, the flower will never bloom as it might have bloomed. |