utiful mother grew better and happier
and stronger--little dreaming that she was never to walk out in the
meads and grounds again. She was always talking about them and saying
where she should go and what she should do when she grew well.

Roses bloomed, lilies lived and died, the birds enjoyed their happy
summer, then flew over the sea to warmer climes; summer dew and summer
rain fell, the dead leaves were whirled in the autumn winds, and still
my mother lay helpless. If this one year seemed so long, what would a
lifetime be?

As some of her strength returned it seemed to me that mother grew more
and more charming. She laughed and enjoyed all our care of her, and when
the wonderful chair came from London, in which she could go round the
garden, and could be wheeled from one room to another, she was as
delighted as a child.

"Still," she said to my father, "it seems to me a pity almost, Roland,
to have sent to London for this. I shall surely be able to walk soon."

He turned away from her with tears in his eyes.

A month or two afterward we were both sitting with her, and she said,
quite suddenly:

"It seems a long time since I began to lie here. I am afraid it will be
many months before I get well again. I think I shall resign myself to
proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and
we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and
she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten
minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about
it. I know it in all its moods--when the wind hurries it and the little
wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among
the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of
the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living
gold, I know it well."

"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will
drive you down any time you like."

But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir
Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her
lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was
something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state
than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him
so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never
left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was
gi