f life, you will do well to place
her at once under competent and proper care. You may live to regret
it, if you are too confident in your own good motives in such a case
as this. Come to me again, if I can be of any use to you. No," he
continued, refusing to take his fee; "my help to that poor lost girl is
help given freely." He shook hands with Amelius--a worthy member of the
noble order to which he belonged.

The surgeon's parting advice, following on the quaint protest of Rufus,
had its effect on Amelius. He was silent and thoughtful when he got into
the carriage again.

Simple Sally looked at him with a vague sense of alarm. Her heart beat
fast, under the perpetually recurring fear that she had done something
or said something to offend him. "Was it bad behaviour in me," she
asked, "to fall asleep in the chair?" Reassured, so far, she was still
as anxious as ever to get at the truth. After long hesitation, and long
previous thought, she ventured to try another question. "The gentleman
sent me out of the room--did he say anything to set you against me?"

"The gentleman said everything that was kind of you," Amelius replied,
"and everything to make me hope that you will live to be a happy girl."

She said nothing to that; vague assurances were no assurances to
her--she only looked at him with the dumb fidelity of a dog. Suddenly,
she dropped on her knees in the carriage, hid her face in her hands, and
cried silently. Surprised and distressed, he attempted to raise her and
console her. "No!" she said obstinately. "Something has happened to vex
you, and you won't tell me what it is. Do, do, do tell me what it is!"

"My dear child," said Amelius, "I was only thinking anxiously about you,
in the time to come."

She looked up at him quickly. "What! have you forgotten already?" she
exclaimed. "I'm to be your servant in the time to come." She dried her
eyes, and took her place again joyously by his side. "You did frighten
me," she said, "and all for nothing. But you didn't mean it, did you?"

An older man might have had the courage to undeceive her: Amelius shrank
from it. He tried to lead her back to the melancholy story--so common
and so terrible; so pitiable in its utter absence of sentiment or
romance--the story of her past life.

"No," she answered, with that quick insight where her feelings were
concerned, which was the only quick insight that she possessed. "I don't
like making you sorry; and you did look sor