might look upon us with sane eyes.

We kept her--just. A mere little wreck, with drawn lips, and great eyes,
and shattered nerves,--but we kept her.

I remember one night, when she had fallen into her first healthful nap,
that the Doctor came down to rest a few minutes in the parlor where I
sat alone. Pauline was washing the tea-things.

He began to pace the room with a weary abstracted look,--he was much
worn by watching,--and, seeing that he was in no mood for words, I took
up a book which lay upon the table. It chanced to be one of Alger's,
which somebody had lent to the Doctor before Harrie's illness; it was a
marked book, and I ran my eye over the pencilled passages. I recollect
having been struck with this one: "A man's best friend is a wife of good
sense and good heart, whom he loves and who loves him."

"You believe that?" said Myron, suddenly, behind my shoulder.

"I believe that a man's wife ought to be his best friend,--in every
sense of the word, his _best friend,_--or she ought never to be his
wife."

"And if--there will be differences of temperament, and--other things. If
you were a man now, for instance, Miss Hannah--"

I interrupted him with hot cheeks and sudden courage.

"If I were a man, and my wife were _not_ the best friend I had or could
have in the world, _nobody should ever know it,--she, least of
all,--Myron Sharpe!_"

Young people will bear a great deal of impertinence from an old lady,
but we had both gone further than we meant to. I closed Mr. Alger with a
snap, and went up to Harrie.

The day that Mrs. Sharpe sat up in the easy-chair for two hours, Miss
Dallas, who had felt called upon to stay and nurse her dear Harrie to
recovery, and had really been of service, detailed on duty among the
babies, went home.

Dr. Sharpe drove her to the station. I accompanied them at his request.
Miss Dallas intended, I think, to look a little pensive, but had her
lunch to cram into a very full travelling-bag, and forgot it. The
Doctor, with clear, courteous eyes, shook hands, and wished her a
pleasant journey.

He drove home in silence, and went directly to his wife's room, A bright
blaze flickered on the old-fashioned fireplace, and the walls bowed with
pretty dancing shadows. Harrie, all alone, turned her face weakly and
smiled.

Well, they made no fuss about it, after all. Her husband came and stood
beside her; a cricket on which one of the baby's dresses had been
thrown, lay between the