dry up, and don't make a
noise. He is really ill. I know it by the way the old doctor smiles. He
always smiles and grins when the case is serious. You'll be quiet, Dick,
dear?"

"This tender solicitude for the sufferer touches me deeply," he
whimpered, mopping his eyes. "Oh, yes, I'll be quiet, Nell. Much as I
love excitement, I'm not anxious for a funeral, and a bereaved and
heartbroken sister. Shall I take my boots off before entering the abode
of sickness, or shall I walk in on my head?"

The day passed. Dick, driven almost mad by the enforced quietude, and
the incessant "Hushes!" of Mrs. Lorton, betook himself to his tool shed
to mend his fishing rod--and cut his fingers--and then to bed. Molly
went to the sick room in the capacity of nurse, and Mrs. Lorton, after
desiring everybody that she should be called if "a change took place,"
retired to the rest earned by pleasurable excitement; and Nell stole
past the spare-room door to her nest under the roof.

As she undressed slowly, she paused now and again to listen. All was
quiet; the injured man was still sleeping. She went to the open window
and looked out seaward. Something was stirring within her, something
that was like the faint motion of the air before a storm. Is it possible
that we have some premonition of the first change in our lives; the
change which is to alter the course of every feeling, every action? She
knew too little of life or the world to ask herself the question; but
she was conscious of a sensation of unrest, of disquietude. She could
not free herself from the haunting presence of the handsome face, of the
dark and weary, wistful eyes. The few sentences he had spoken kept
repeating themselves in her ear, striking on her brain with soft
persistence. The very name filled her thoughts. "Drake Vernon, Drake
Vernon!"

At last, with an impatient movement, with a blush of shame for the way
in which her mind was dwelling on him, she left the window and fell on
her knees at the narrow bed to say her prayers.

But his personality intruded even on her devotions, and, half
unconsciously, she added to her simple formula a supplication for his
recovery.

Then she got into bed and fell asleep. But in a very little while she
started awake, seeing the horse shy and fall, feeling the man's head
upon her lap. She sat up and listened. His room was beneath hers--the
cottage was built in the usual thin and unsubstantial fashion--and every
sound from the room