ide of Rachel's. There are many men who would have
admired Hetty's hand the more of the two. It was a much more significant
hand. To one who could read palmistry, it meant all that Hetty was; and
it was symmetrical and firm. But, at that moment, to Dr. Eben it looked
large and masculine.

"Oh, take it away, Hetty!" he said, thoughtlessly. "It looks like a
man's hand by the side of this child's."

Hetty laughed. She thought so too. But the words remained in her mind,
and allied themselves to words that had gone before, and to things that
had happened, and to thoughts which were restlessly growing, growing in
Hetty's bosom.

If Rachel had remained an invalid, probably Hetty's thoughts of her,
as connected with her husband, would never have gone beyond this vague
stage which we have tried to describe. She would have been to Hetty only
the suggestion of a possible ideal wife, who, had she lived, and had
she entered into Dr. Eben's life, might have made him happier than
Hetty could. But Rachel grew better and stronger every day. Early in the
spring she began to walk,--creeping about, at first, like a little child
just learning to walk, by pushing a chair before her. Then she walked
with a cane and her father's arm; then with the cane alone; and at
last, one day in May,--oddly enough it was the anniversary of Hetty's
wedding-day,--Dr. Eben burst into her room, exclaiming: "Hetty! Hetty!
Rachel has walked several rods alone. She is cured! She is going to be
as well as anybody."

The doctor's face was flushed with excitement. Never had he had what
seemed to him so great a professional triumph. It was the physician
and not the man that felt so intensely. But Hetty could not wholly know
this. She had shared his deep anxiety about the case; and she had shared
much of his strong interest in Rachel, and it was with an unaffected
pleasure that she exclaimed: "Oh, I'm so thankful!" but her next
sentence was one which arrested her husband's attention, and seemed to
him a strange one.

"Then there is nothing to hinder her being married, is there?"

"Why, no," laughed the doctor, "nothing, except the lack of a man fit
to marry her! What put such a thought as that into your head, Hetty? I
don't believe Rachel Barlow will ever be married. I'm sure I don't know
the man that's worthy to so much as kiss the child's feet!" and the
unconscious Dr. Eben hastened away, little dreaming what a shaft he had
sped.

Hetty stood at the open wi