House. Dick, seated in his armchair, was looking at them in his
peaceful, half-sleepy way. A handsome fellow he must have been in the
days of health and prosperity. Even now, though he was paralysed in
brain as well as in limbs, there was a wonderful expression of goodness
and patience in his worn face.

'Are you well to-day?' asked little Georgie, putting his hand on the
invalid's knee, and looking up into his face with his blue eyes full of
childish sympathy.

Dick smiled. Getting better every day,' replied he, in the indistinct
accents of the partially paralysed.

Estelle was arranging her flowers on the little table at his side, and
Marjorie had gone to speak to Mrs. Peet.

The house was close to the old drawbridge, and its garden sloped down to
the waters of the moat. Shining like silver in the bright sunshine, the
waterlilies were resting on their broad leaves, and two swans were
sailing in stately beauty. The summer sun had banished all signs of the
thunderstorm, and Dick's chair had been placed near the elms overhanging
the water. It was a pretty, well-kept garden, and a very old-world
house, with a deep porch, overgrown with honeysuckle and clematis--a
home not to be despised by any one. The rooms were of good size and well
furnished, and everything had been done which could make Dick happy and
comfortable in his misfortune.

'Better!' said Mrs. Peet, who came down the lawn with Marjorie, and had
heard Dick's reply to Georgie's question, 'It's not the sort of getting
better that _we_ understand. He is a bit weaker, if anything. Perhaps
'tis the heat tries him. My poor Dick!' she went on, putting her apron
to her eyes, 'he will never be better in this world, that's what I says,
though it does make his father angry.'

'Is he angry?' said Estelle. 'Why?

'He thinks it is hard on us, is poor Dick's illness. It _is_ hard! But
it seems to me we have much to be thankful for, specially in my lady's
goodness to us in our affliction.'

'I think it's worse for Dick than for any one else,' declared Alan, who
had joined the group; he could not imagine a more terrible life than the
one of utter helplessness to which Dick was condemned.

'So it is,' returned Mrs. Peet, with a heavy sigh, as she gazed at her
son with tears in her eyes, 'and he is so patient! Why, you never so
much as hear a grumble, nor a fret! Now, what do you think his great
wish is--what he is always wanting, miss?'

'If it is anything we can d