here."
It was the only observation his amiable patient made, and she repeated it
several times--"You must be miserably off." Even when she had returned to
her own room, and he had left her for the night, she still said nothing
but--"You are miserably lodged!"

The next morning, when the Doctor visited his patient--and you may be sure
his visit was an early one--to his surprise, she was on foot, with sleeves
tucked up, sweeping, dusting, and _putting to rights_ her little abode. He
was astonished. The shock which she had received the day before, instead
of injuring her, had apparently aided in her restoration. She was quite
gay.

"You are resolved to kill yourself, then?" said the Doctor.

"I was never better in my life," she answered.

"Do not be too confident," was his reply. "You must keep your room two or
three days; and this time," he added, with a smile, "I shall keep guard
over you myself."

The Countess consented with a most childlike docility. She would do what
he pleased; only yesterday she was obliged to go out--it was absolutely
necessary. There was so much gentleness in her altered manner, that the
Doctor was disposed to regard this as an alarming symptom in her case.

However, it, was not so. Her health, day by day, improved, and the
relation between the patient and her medical attendant became more
amicable. She proposed, by way of some return, to assist him in his
bachelor housekeeping. It would give her no trouble. An hour in the
morning, when he was at his lectures, some of which he still followed; and
then she could cook, and she could mend. These offers the young Doctor
declined with a sort of alarm. Who but himself could readjust those
habiliments, whose strong and whose weak points he so very well knew? What
needle could, on this ground, be half so skilful as his own? And cooking!
Cooking with him! Cook what? _On_ what? _In_ what? It was in vain that the
Countess insisted; he would hear of no such thing. He kept his poverty
veiled--it was his sacred territory.

Some few days after the Countess's health might be said to be quite
re-established, our young Doctor, on entering his room, was surprised to
see a letter lying on his table. Correspondence, for the mere sake of
letter-writing, he had quite foregone as a pure waste of time; and he had
no relatives who interested themselves in his fate, or who could have any
thing to communicate. Nevertheless, there the letter was, addressed duly
to him