Gilbert Fenton found Jacob Nowell worse; so much worse, that he had been
obliged to take to his bed, and was lying in a dull shabby room upstairs,
faintly lighted by one tallow candle on the mantelpiece. Marian was there
when Gilbert went in. She had arrived a couple of hours before, and had
taken her place at once by the sick-bed. Her bonnet and shawl were thrown
carelessly upon a dilapidated couch by the window. Gilbert fancied she
looked like a ministering angel as she sat by the bed, her soft brown
hair falling loosely round the lovely face, her countenance almost divine
in its expression of tenderness and pity.

"You came to town alone, Marian?" he asked in a low voice.

The old man was in a doze at this moment, lying with his pinched withered
face turned towards his granddaughter, his feeble hand in hers.

"Yes, I came alone. My husband had not come back, and I would not delay
any longer after receiving your letter. I am very glad I came. My poor
grandfather seemed so pleased to see me. He was wandering a little when I
first came in, but brightened wonderfully afterwards, and quite
understood who I was."

The old man awoke presently. He was in a semi-delirious state, but seemed
to know his granddaughter, and clung to her, calling her by name with
senile fondness. His mind wandered back to the past, and he talked to his
son as if he had been in the room, reproaching him for his extravagance,
his college debts, which had been the ruin of his careful hard-working
father. At another moment he fancied that his wife was still alive, and
spoke to her, telling her that their grandchild had been christened after
her, and that she was to love the girl. And then the delirium left him
for a time, his mind grew clearer, and he talked quite rationally in his
low feeble way.

"Is that Mr. Fenton?" he asked; "the room's so dark, I can't see very
well. She has come to me, you see. She's a good girl. Her eyes are like
my wife's. Yes, she's a good girl. It seems a hard thing that I should
have lived all these years without knowing her; lived alone, with no one
about me but those that were on the watch for my money, and eager to
cheat me at every turn. My life might have been happier if I'd had a
grandchild to keep me company, and I might have left this place and lived
like a gentleman for her sake. But that's all past and gone. You'll be
rich when I'm dead, Marian; yes, what most people would count rich. You
won't squander