onder he
sticks, as if he was glued, to the window, now he's got one worth the
glass."

"Oh, let him!"

"If he could walk about the garden, it would be better yet."

"Won't he, Sandy?"

"I can't say. He's here for some terrible piece of work, they say. And
nobody knows what his name is, I guess,--hereabouts, I mean. I never
heard it. He won't be out very quick. But let him _look_ out, any way."

"Oh, Sandy! I might have said something that would have hindered!"

"Didn't I know you wouldn't for the world? That's why I told you."

The gardener now went on with his spading. But Elizabeth's work seemed
finished for this day. Above them stood the prisoner. He guessed not
what gentle hearts were pitiful with thinking of his sorrow.

The next day the prisoner was not at the window, nor the next day, nor
the next. Sandy was bold enough to ask the keeper, Mr. Laval, what was
the meaning of it, and learned that the man was ill, and not likely to
recover. Sandy told Elizabeth, and they agreed in thinking that for the
poor creature death was probably the least of evils.

But the day following that on which they came to this conclusion, the
sick man appeared before Sandy's astonished eyes. He was under the
keeper's care. The physician had ordered this change of air, and they
came to the garden at an hour when there was least danger of meeting
other persons in the walks.

Sandy had much to tell Elizabeth when he saw her next. She trembled
while he told her how he thought that he had seen a ghost when the
keeper came leading the prisoner, whose pale face, tall figure, feeble
step, appeared to have so little to do with human nature and affairs.

"Did he seem to care for the flowers? did he take any?" she asked.

"No,--he would not touch them. The keeper offered him whatever he would
choose. He desired nothing. But he looked at all, he saw
everything,--even the beds of vegetables," Sandy said.

"Did he seem pleased?" Elizabeth again asked.

"Pleased!" exclaimed Sandy. "That's for you and me,--not a man that's
been shut up these five years. No,--he didn't look pleased. I don't
know how he looked; don't ask me; 'tisn't pleasant to think of."

"I would have made him take the flowers, if I had been here," said
Elizabeth, in a manner that seemed very positive, in comparison with
Sandy's uncertain speech.

"May-be,--I dare say," Sandy acquiesced; but he evidently had his
doubts even of her power in this business.

She mus