n."

Miss Adamson looked at her. "Yes," she said, "it's a poor thing,
life, after the glory of it is gone, and I have always had an intense
curiosity to see what is beyond. I never could see the sense of making
a great ado to keep people alive after they are fifty. Don't look
surprised. How are the rest of the people that are ill?" She often
asked for them, and expressed great satisfaction when told they were
recovering. "It will be all right," she said, "if I am the only death
in the place; but there is one thing I want you to do. Send off a
telegram to George Eildon and tell him I want to see him immediately:
a dying person can say what a living one can't, and I'll make it all
right between Alice and him before I go."

Miss Adamson despatched the telegram to Mr. Eildon, knowing that she
could not refuse to do Lady Arthur's bidding at such a time, although
her feeling was against it. The answer came: Mr. Eildon had just
sailed for Australia.

When Lady Arthur heard this she said, "I'll write to him." When she
had finished writing she said, "You'll send this to him whenever you
get his address. I wish we could have sent it off at once, for it will
be provoking if I don't die, after all; and I positively begin to feel
as if that were not going to be my luck at this time."

Although she spoke in this way, Miss Adamson knew it was not from
foolish irreverence. She recovered, and all who had had the fever
recovered, which was remarkable, for in other places it had been very
fatal.

With Lady Arthur's returning strength things at the hall wore into
their old channels again. When it was considered safe many visits
of congratulation were paid, and among others who came were George
Eildon's mother and some of his sisters. They were constantly having
letters from George: he had gone off very suddenly, and it was not
certain when he might return.

Alice heard of George Eildon with interest, but not with the vital
interest she had felt in him for a time: that had worn away. She had
done her best to this end by keeping herself always occupied, and many
things had happened in the interval; besides, she had grown a woman,
with all the good sense and right feeling belonging to womanhood, and
she would have been ashamed to cherish a love for one who had entirely
forgotten her. She dismissed her childish letter, which had given her
so much vexation, from her memory, feeling sure that George Eildon had
also forgotten it long ago.