ew,
refused to see him again (he called him a water-wagtail), Margaret was
obliged to describe as well as she could to the baffled man the symptoms
and general condition of his patient--a patient who was as impatient as
possible with every one, including herself.

But save for this small duty, Margaret had none of the responsibilities
of a nurse; two men were in attendance. She had sent to Savannah for
them, Lanse having declared that he infinitely preferred having men
about him--"I can swear at them, you know, when the pain nips me. I
can't swear at you yet--you're too much of a stranger." This he brought
out in the scowling banter which he had used when speaking to her ever
since her arrival. The scowl, however, came from his pain.

He was able to move only his head; in addition to the suffering, the
confinement was intolerably irksome to a man of his active habits and
fondness for out-door life. Under the course of treatment prescribed by
Dr. Kirby he began to improve; but the improvement was slow, and he made
it slower by his unwillingness to submit to rules. At the end of two
months, however, he was able to use his hands and arms again, they could
raise him to a sitting position; the attacks of pain came less
frequently, and when they did come it was at night. This gave him his
days, and one of the first uses he made of his new liberty was to have
himself carried in an improvised litter borne by negroes, who relieved
each other at intervals, to a house which he had talked about, when able
to talk, ever since he was stricken down. This house was not in itself
an attractive abode. But Lanse violently disliked being in a hotel; he
had noticed the place before his illness, and thinking of it as he lay
upon his bed, he kept declaring angrily that at least he should not feel
"hived in" there. The building, bare and solitary, stood upon a narrow
point which jutted sharply into the river, so that its windows commanded
as uninterrupted a view up and down stream as that enjoyed by the little
post-office at the end of the pier; it had the look of a signal-station.

It had not always been so exposed. Once it was an embowered Florida
residence, shaded by many trees, clothed in flowering vines.

But its fate was to be purchased at the close of the war by a
northerner, who, upon taking possession, had immediately stripped the
old mansion of all its blossoming greenery, had cut down the stately
trees which stood near, had put i