'_Biddy!_' she exclaimed, as she caught sight of the child beside her
father, his arm round her, her eager flushed face looking up at him--and
her tone was rather anxious and annoyed. But Mr. Vane glanced at his
wife with a little sign which she understood. She came quickly towards
them.

'Biddy,' whispered her father, 'here is mamma.'

Bridget's face worked for a moment, then she flung her arms round her
mother's neck.

'Mamma, mamma,' she whispered, 'I'm going to try to be good--if only
you'll forgive me. I don't want to die if I can be good and help to
nurse papa. Mamma, there was something _very_ sorry came into my heart
when papa got me out of the water and I saw how white he was. But I
wouldn't listen to it, and it got hard and horrid. But now it's come
again--Celestina began it, and I _will_ be good--and _don't_ you think
God will make papa better?'

I don't think Mrs. Vane had ever kissed Biddy as she kissed her then.

* * * * *

Doctors say that _wishing_ to get better has a good deal to do with it.
It did seem so in Mr. Vane's case; he was not afraid to die, but he was
still young, and it seemed to him that if he were spared to live there
were many good and useful things he could do. And he was a happy and
cheerful man; he loved being alive, and he loved this beautiful world,
and longed to make other people as happy as he was himself. Most of all
he loved his wife and children, and his great wish to get well was for
their sake more than for any other reason. And never during the several
illnesses he had had did he wish _quite_ so much to get well as now. For
he had a feeling that if he did not recover a sad shadow would be cast
over Biddy's life--a shadow that would not grow lighter but darker, he
feared, as she came more fully to understand that her folly or childish
naughtiness had been the cause of his illness and death.

'It would leave a sore memory in her mother's heart too,' Mr. Vane said
to himself, 'however much she tried not to let it come between her and
the child.'

And I fear it would have done so.

So Biddy's father did his best to get well. Not by fidgeting and
worrying and thinking of nothing but his own symptoms, but by cheerful
patience. He obeyed the doctor's orders exactly, and forced himself to
believe that the work he would fain have been doing would get done, by
God's help, even though _he_ might not do it; he kept up his interest in
all going on