Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/62

 He lifted both arms with a sigh of perfect content. "Chicker Menie," he said, hoarsely.

She bent over him with one of the rare smiles which so softened her stern face.

"Sister Philomena is here," she said, gently. "Frederick must be a good boy and keep very quiet, or the doctor will have to come again and give him more medicine."

He sat up, his croupy cough filling the room. Sister Rodriguez heard it and ran to him, but he turned from her whom he loved dearly to the sombre eyes of the nun who stood beside him.

"Fweddie yants to be yocked by Chicker Menie," he announced. He leaned towards her, his arms outstretched, his lips quivering, his blue eyes full of the love which the aloofness of the woman had never killed in his baby soul.

"Fweddie chick," he repeated. "Fweddie yants Chicker Menie to yock him."

Sister Rodriguez turned away, her eyes dim.

"If she rebuffs him now," she thought, "I am afraid I can never feel quite the same to Sister Philomene.

She did not. He thought she had, and the big tears fell on the thin cheeks, for Frederick Addison sick lacked some of the sturdy