w behind my head with
a marvellous deftness, and then began feeding me in dainty spoonfuls
something which was surely nectar. And mine eyes, too, had their feast.
Never before had I seen my lady in this gentle guise, this task of
nursing the sick, which her doing raised to a queenly art.

Her face had changed some. Years of trial unknown to me had left an
ennobling mark upon her features, increasing their power an hundred fold.
And the levity of girlish years was gone. How I burned to question her!
But her lips were now tight closed, her glance now and anon seeking mine,
and then falling with an exquisite droop to the coverlet. For the old
archness, at least, would never be eradicated. Presently, after she had
taken the cup and smoothed my pillow, I reached out for her hand. It was
a boldness of which I had not believed myself capable; but she did not
resist, and even, as I thought, pressed my fingers with her own slender
ones, the red of our Maryland holly blushing in her cheeks. And what
need of words, indeed! Our thoughts, too, flew coursing hand in hand
through primrose paths, and the angels themselves were not to be envied.

A master might picture my happiness, waking and sleeping, through the
short winter days that came and went like flashes of gray light. The
memory of them is that of a figure tall and lithe, a little more rounded
than of yore, and a chiselled face softened by a power that is one of the
world's mysteries. Dorothy had looked the lady in rags, and housewife's
cap and apron became her as well as silks or brocades. When for any
reason she was absent from my side, I moped, to the quiet amusement of
Mrs. Manners and the more boisterous delight of Aunt Lucy, who took her
turn sewing in the window. I was near to forgetting the use of words,
until at length, one rare morning when the sun poured in, the jolly
doctor dressed my wounds with more despatch than common, and vouchsafed
that I might talk awhile that day.

"Oh!" cries he, putting me as ever to confusion, "but I have a guess
whom my gentleman will be wishing to talk with. But I'll warrant, sir,
you have said a deal more than I have any notion of without opening your
lips."

And he went away, intolerably pleased with his joke.

Alas for the perversity of maiden natures! It was not my dear nurse who
brought my broth that morning, but Mrs. Manners herself. She smiled at
my fallen face, and took a chair at my bedside.

"Now, my dear boy," she sai