nner, for he ate but little, and soon sank
back on the bed.

"I feel better when my head is low," he explained, in a faint voice.

"Can't I do something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as she
perceived how ill and faint he really was.

"I guess you better write to his folks," said Mrs. Welsh.

"No, don't do that," he protested, opening his eyes; "it will only worry
them, and do me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn't
waste your time on me; Hartley will wait on me."

"Don't mind him," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's goin'
to do just as I tell him to--aren't you, Albert?"

He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off into a doze. It was all
very pleasant to be thus waited upon. Hartley was devotion itself, and
the doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a man
with a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personal
friend.

Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:

"Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows I
promised t' meet this morning."

"All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin' t'
sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."

"Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don't
want something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."

* * * * *

"Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert, one afternoon, when Maud came in
with her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow business
layin' here like this."

"Shall I, mother?"

"Why, of course, Maud."

So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant from
the bed, and read to him from _The Lady of the Lake_, while the mother,
like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at the
never-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart and
soul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimage
from stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar to
garret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till the
flesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheated
soul.

Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measure
the sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful head
bent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till the
voice and the sunlit head were lost in a deep, sweet sleep.

The girl sat