nce closed her in.

Before November was over Mr. Tryan had ceased to go out. A new crisis had
come on: the cough had changed its character, and the worst symptoms
developed themselves so rapidly that Mr. Pratt began to think the end
would arrive sooner than he had expected. Janet became a constant
attendant on him now, and no one could feel that she was performing
anything but a sacred office. She made Holly Mount her home, and, with
her mother and Mrs. Pettifer to help her, she filled the painful days and
nights with every soothing influence that care and tenderness could
devise. There were many visitors to the sick-room, led thither by
venerating affection; and there could hardly be one who did not retain in
after years a vivid remembrance of the scene there--of the pale wasted
form in the easy-chair (for he sat up to the last), of the grey eyes so
full even yet of inquiring kindness, as the thin, almost transparent hand
was held out to give the pressure of welcome; and of the sweet woman,
too, whose dark watchful eyes detected every want, and who supplied the
want with a ready hand.

There were others who would have had the heart and the skill to fill this
place by Mr. Tryan's side, and who would have accepted it as an honour;
but they could not help feeling that God had given it to Janet by a train
of events which were too impressive not to shame all jealousies into
silence.

That sad history which most of us know too well, lasted more than three
months. He was too feeble and suffering for the last few weeks to see any
visitors, but he still sat up through the day. The strange hallucinations
of the disease which had seemed to take a more decided hold on him just
at the fatal crisis, and had made him think he was perhaps getting better
at the very time when death had begun to hurry on with more rapid
movement, had now given way, and left him calmly conscious of the
reality. One afternoon, near the end of February, Janet was moving gently
about the room, in the fire-lit dusk, arranging some things that would be
wanted in the night. There was no one else in the room, and his eyes
followed her as she moved with the firm grace natural to her, while the
bright fire every now and then lit up her face, and gave an unusual glow
to its dark beauty. Even to follow her in this way with his eyes was an
exertion that gave a painful tension to his face; while she looked like
an image of life and strength.

'Janet,' he said pre