t perhaps, out of all my broken threads, regather
one or two.

For from the first I had been told the trials I was to confront. My life
had been saved, although it was at first despaired of, but I must be
permanently lame. It had been a most unlucky fall for me, but a glorious
case for the surgeons--fractures and compound fractures, broken ribs and
dislocated shoulders. In old times, when I had planned out my future, I
had said that I would be a surgeon when I grew up; but now, although all
my doctors--and my experience of doctors had come to be as wide as most
people's--had been most patient, tender and untiring in their study and
treatment of my case, I resigned without one murmur my wish to enter the
profession.

One morning, while I was still absolutely helpless, a fierce gleam of
light reflected up from the sea shot athwart my face. Helen sprang up
and carefully adjusted shades and curtains.

"You are a kind little nurse, Helen," said I. "What does the new
governess think of the way you spend your time?"

"Oh, Mademoiselle Lenoir quite enjoys it," returned my mother, laughing:
"she sits about reading novels and eating bonbons. I will go and see
what she is doing now."

"Do, mother," said I, "and take a walk in the greenhouses
yourself.--Helen, you'll take good care of me, won't you?"

She flung her arm about my neck and pressed her quivering lips against
my hair.

"I wish I could do something for you," she cried plaintively.

"But you do a great deal, Helen. Of course my mother does everything
best of any one, but you come next."

She gave me a piteous little smile. "I wish I could do something better
than any one else," she whispered: "it was all my fault."

"Now, dear little girl, I shall send you away if you say that any more.
Nothing was your fault--nothing. Don't take up that weary strain again.
I want you to tell me all about that morning, though: I never heard yet
how you came to be on the cliff at all. Your grandfather had forbidden
you to go there."

Her lips still quivered. "I am afraid I shall cry," she said with a
little gasp.

"You must not cry: it does me harm to see anybody cry," I answered
imperiously. "Now tell me about it all."

She regained her self-command at once: "Georgy asked me about the cliff,
and I told her that grandpa said I was never to go there--never. But she
took me by the arm and pulled me: she pulled me hard--she is stronger
than I am," said the poor little mite. I