giving just a hint at a greater change
which might show itself sooner or later; her face seemed a trifle more
clearly cut than it ought to have been, and the slender throat, set in
its surrounding Elizabethan frill of white, seemed more slender than
it had used to be. Each change was slight enough in itself, but all
together gave a shadowy suggestion of alteration to affectionately quick
eyes.

"You are ill," said Aimee. "And you never told me. It was wrong of you.
Don't tell me it is your black dress; your eyes are too big and bright
for any one who is well, and your hand is thinner than it ever was
before. Why, I can feel the difference as I hold it, and it is as
feverish as it can be."

"You good, silly little thing!" said Dolly, laughing. "I am not ill at
all. I have caught a cold, perhaps, but that is all."

"No you have not," contradicted Aimee, with pitiful sharpness. "You have
not caught cold, and you must not tell me so. You are ill, and you have
been ill for weeks. The worst of colds could never make you look like
this. Mr. Gowan might well be startled and wonder--"

"Mr. Gowan!" Dolly interrupted her. "Did _he_ say that he was startled?"

"Yes, he did," Aimee answered. "And that was what brought me here. He
was at Bloomsbury Place last night and told me all about you, and I
made up my mind that minute that I would come and judge for myself."

Then the girl gave in. She sat down on a chair by the dressing-table
and rested her forehead on her hand, laughing faintly, as if in protest
against her own subjugation.

"Then I shall have to submit," she said. "The fact is, I sometimes fancy
I do feel weaker than I ought to. It is n't like me to be weak. I
was always so strong, you know,--stronger than all the rest of you,
I thought. Miss MacDowlas says I do not look well. I suppose," with a
half-sigh, "that every one will see it soon. Aimee," hesitating, "don't
tell them at home."

Aimee slipped an arm around her, and drew her head--dressed in all the
old elaborateness of pretty coils and braids--upon her own shoulder.

"Darling," she whispered, trying to restrain her tears, "I must tell
them at home, because I must take you home to be nursed."

"No, no!" said Dolly, starting, "that would never do. It would never
do even to think of it. I am not so ill as that,--not ill enough to be
nursed. Besides," her voice sinking all at once, "I could n't go home,
Aimee,--I could not bear to go home now. That is why I