my throat, but I bit it back fiercely before it passed my
lips.

"Oh, Sally, my darling, why did you marry me?"

"You cruel boy," she returned cheerfully, as she smoothed my pillows,
"when you know that if I hadn't married you there wouldn't be any little
Benjamin in the world."

After this the slow days dragged away, while I consumed chicken broth
and milk punches with a frantic desire to get back my strength. Only to
be on my feet again, and able to lift the burden from Sally's shoulders!
Only to drive that tired look from her eyes, and that patient, divine
smile from her lips! I watched her with jealous longing while I lay
there, helpless as a fallen tree, and I saw that she grew daily thinner,
that the soft redness never left her small, childlike hands, that three
fine, nervous wrinkles had appeared between her arched eyebrows.
Something was killing her, while I, the man who had sworn before God to
cherish her, was but an additional burden on her fragile shoulders. And
yet how I loved her! Never had she seemed to me more lovely, more
desirable, than she did as she moved about my bed in her gingham apron,
with the anxious smile on her lips, and the delicate furrows deepening
between her eyebrows.

"How soon? How soon, Sally?" I asked almost hourly, kissing the scar on
her wrist when she bent over me.

"Be patient, dear."

"I am trying to be patient for your sake, but oh, it's devilish hard!"

"I know it is, Ben. Another week, and you will be up."

"Another week, and this killing you!"

"It isn't killing me. If it were killing me, do you think I could laugh?
And you hear me laugh?"

"Yes, I hear you laugh, and it breaks my heart as I lie here. If I'm
ever up, Sally, if I'm ever well, I'll make you go to bed and I will
slave over you."

"There are many things I'd enjoy more, dear. Going to bed isn't my idea
of happiness."

"Then you shall sit on a cushion and eat nothing but strawberries and
cream."

"That sounds better. Well, there's something I've got to see about, so
I'll leave you with Aunt Euphronasia to look after you. The doctor says
you may have a cup of tea if you're good. We'll make a party together."

An hour or two later, when the afternoon sunshine was shut out by the
green blinds, and the room was filled with a gentle droning sound from
the humming-birds at the jessamine, she drew up the small wicker tea
table to my bedside, and we made the party with merriment. Her eyes were
tired, the