the delicate hues of
the young cheek, and the lustre that brightened the dark blue of the
wandering eyes. She did not at first heed me, did not seem aware of
my presence; but kept murmuring to herself words which I could not
distinguish.

At length, when I spoke to her, in that low, soothing tone which we
learn at the sick-bed, the expression of her face altered suddenly; she
passed the hand I did not hold over her forehead, turned round, looked
at me full and long, with unmistakable surprise, yet not as if the
surprise displeased her,--less the surprise which recoils from the
sight of a stranger than that which seems doubtfully to recognize an
unexpected friend. Yet on the surprise there seemed to creep something
of apprehension, of fear; her hand trembled, her voice quivered, as she
said,--

"Can it be, can it be? Am I awake? Mother, who is this?"

"Only a kind visitor, Dr. Fenwick, sent by Mrs. Poyntz, for I was uneasy
about you, darling. How are you now?"

"Better. Strangely better."

She removed her hand gently from mine, and with an involuntary modest
shrinking turned towards Mrs. Ashleigh, drawing her mother towards
herself, so that she became at once hidden from me.

Satisfied that there was here no delirium, nor even more than the slight
and temporary fever which often accompanies a sudden nervous attack in
constitutions peculiarly sensitive, I retired noiselessly from the
room, and went, not into that which had been occupied by the ill-fated
Naturalist, but down-stairs into the drawing-room, to write my
prescription. I had already sent the servant off with it to the
chemist's before Mrs. Ashleigh joined me.

"She seems recovering surprisingly; her forehead is cooler; she
is perfectly self-possessed, only she cannot account for her own
seizure,--cannot account either for the fainting or the agitation with
which she awoke from sleep."

"I think I can account for both. The first room in which she
entered--that in which she fainted--had its window open; the sides of
the window are overgrown with rank creeping plants in full blossom. Miss
Ashleigh had already predisposed herself to injurious effects from the
effluvia by fatigue, excitement, imprudence in sitting out at the fall
of a heavy dew. The sleep after the fainting fit was the more disturbed,
because Nature, always alert and active in subjects so young, was
making its own effort to right itself from an injury. Nature has nearly
succeeded. What I