to watch him in his helplessness,
trying to appear as of old, so as to cast on others no part of the
shadow resting so darkly on himself. When dinner was over and the sun
began to decline, many of his former friends came in, but he looked so
pale and weary that they did not tarry long, and when the last one was
gone, Morris was led back to his room, which he did not leave again
until the summer was over and the luscious fruits of September were
ripening upon the trees.

Toward the middle of July, Helen, whose health was suffering from her
restless anxiety concerning Mark, was taken by Mrs. Banker to Nahant,
where Mark's sister, Mrs. Ernst, was spending the summer, and thus on
Katy alone fell the duty of paying to Morris those little acts of
sisterly attentions such as no other member of the family knew how to
pay. In the room where he lay so helpless Katy was not afraid of him,
nor did she deem herself faithless to Wilford's memory, because each day
found her at Linwood, sometimes bathing Morris' inflamed eyes, sometimes
bringing him the cooling drink, and again reading to him by the hour,
until, soothed by the music of her voice, he would fall away to sleep
and dream it was an angel there with him.

"My eyes are getting better," he said to her one day toward the latter
part of August, when she came as usual to his room. "I knew last night
that Mrs. Hull's dress was blue, and I saw the sun shine through the
shutters. Soon, very soon, I hope to see you, Katy, and know if you have
changed."

She was standing close by him, and as he talked he raised his hand as if
to rest it on her head, but, with a sudden movement, Katy eluded the
touch, and stepped a little farther from him.

She did not go to Linwood the next day, nor the next; and when she went
again there was in her manner a shade more of dignity, which had both
amused and interested Morris. He did not know for certain that Wilford
had told Katy of the confession made that memorable night when her
recovery seemed so doubtful, but he more than half suspected it from the
shyness of her manner and from the various excuses she now made for not
coming to Linwood every day, as she had heretofore done.

"You do not need me as much as you did," she said to him one morning in
September, when he complained of his loneliness, and told how he had
waited for her the previous day until night shut down, and he knew she
would not come. "You can see better than you did. You are a