CHAPTER IV.
"MARIA."
SUCH colds! Never was any thing like them. Day after day Max sat by the fire with a splitting headache, cold chills running down his back; while night after night Thekla awoke, coughing and choking from a spot in her throat which burned like a live coal. I can tell you, when March gives a present he does it in real earnest.
They were so miserable you might have thought that even March must pity them a little. But he didn't,—not a bit. As he told the children, he was any thing but a "tender-hearted person." "When they were at the very worst, they could hear him astride the roof, roaring and
