something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as she saw
how ill and faint he really was. His eyes were closed and he looked the
invalid now.

"I guess you better write to his folks."

"No; don't do that," he said, opening his eyes; "it will only do them
harm an' me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn't waste
your time on me; Hartley'll wait on me."

"Mr. Lohr, how can you say such cruel----"

"Don't mind him now," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's
goin' to do just as I tell him to--ain't you, Albert?"

He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off in a doze. It was all
very pleasant to be thus treated. Hartley was devotion itself, and the
doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a man with
a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personal friend.

Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:

"Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows I
promised t' meet this morning."

"All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin'
t' sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."

"Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don't
want something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."

"Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert in the afternoon, when Maud came
in with her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow
business layin' here like this. Course I can't ask Jim to stay and read
all the time, and he's a bad reader, anyway; won't you?"

"Shall I, mother?"

"Why, of course, Maud!"

So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant from
the bed, and read to him from "The Lady of the Lake," while the mother,
like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at the
never-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart and
soul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimage
from stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar to
garret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till the
flesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheated
soul.

Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measure
the sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful head
bent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till the
voice and the sunlit head were lost in his deep, sweet sleep.

The girl sat with closed book, looking at