eed, it seemed as if he had not heard her.

"You might still be in time, if you were to exert yourself." whispered
she, with more earnestness.

"I tell you again," said he, raising his voice to a louder pitch, "that
my place is here, and I will not leave her."

A low, faint sigh was breathed by the sick girl, and gently moving her
hand, she laid it on his head.

"You know me then, dearest?" whispered he. "You know who it is kneels
beside you?"

She made no answer, but her feeble fingers tried to play with his hair,
and strayed, unguided, over his head.

What shape of reproach, remonstrance, or protest, Miss Grainger's
mutterings took, is not recorded; but she bustled out of the room,
evidently displeased with all in it.

"She knows you, Joseph. She is trying to thank you," said Emily.

"Her lips are moving: can you hear what she says, Milly?"

The girl bent over the bed, till her ear almost touched her sister's
mouth. "Yes, darling, from his heart he does. He never loved you with
such devotion as now. She asks if you can forgive her, Joseph. She
remembers everything."

"And not leave me," sighed Florence, in a voice barely audible.

"No, my own dearest, I will not leave you," was all that he could utter
in the conflict of joy and sorrow he felt A weak attempt to thank him
she made by an effort to press his hand, but it sent a thrill of delight
through his heart, more than a recompense for all he had suffered.

If Emily, with a generous delicacy, retired towards the window and took
up her work, not very profitably perhaps, seeing how little light came
through the nearly closed shutters, let us not show ourselves less
discreet, and leave the lovers to themselves. Be assured, dear reader,
that in our reserve on this point we are not less mindful of your
benefit than of theirs. The charming things, so delightful to say and so
ecstatic to hear, are wonderfully tame to tell. Perhaps their very charm
is in the fact, that their spell was only powerful to those who uttered
them. At all events, we are determined on discretion, and shall only own
that, though Aunt Grainger made periodical visits to the sick-room,
with frequent references to the hour of the day, and the departures and
arrival of various rail trains, they never heard her, or, indeed, knew
that she was present.

And though she was mistress of those "asides" and that grand innuendo
style which is so deadly round a corner, they never paid the slightest