flash, all over in a
minute."

"Who has been nursing him in his illness?" asked Philippa.

"At first, of course, he had trained nurses, but later, when he could
not be called ill in himself, he just had his own valet for some time.
But after a while, to Lady Louisa's great distress, some one spread a
report in the village that he was out of his mind, so she arranged that
his rooms were to be quite separate. They were never entered by the
house servants. I sent for a nephew of mine, a quiet, trustworthy man
who I knew could keep his tongue in his head, and for years he has
waited on him, and his wife has had charge of his rooms under my
supervision. I have been to see him every day and seen to his comfort,
but I am very old now and past work. If that were not so, should not I
be nursing him now?" she asked sadly. "It is difficult to stand aside
and watch others doing what you long to do yourself. But that must be
in old age. It is years since he crossed the threshold of his own
rooms, and I am sure there are people on the place now who don't know
he lives here--so quiet was it kept, by my lady's wish. Oh," she cried
tremulously, "if my dear lady could only be here to see the change in
him!"

"You have seen him to-day?" asked Philippa. "How did you think he was
looking?"

"He looks very ill," answered the old woman; "but he was quite his old
self. He had some little joke ready for me. He was always full of
fun. Isn't it wonderful? It seems just as if all those years had been
wiped right off, as you would wipe a slate."

"Did he speak of old times?"

"Not exactly, but he was just having his breakfast as I went in, and I
stood beside him while he ate it, and he laughed when I tried to help
him, and asked whether I shouldn't feed him with a spoon--whether I
thought he was a baby again. Then he spoke of you, and asked if I had
seen you and how you were."

They found the music presently, and Philippa possessed herself of a
quantity of it and carried it down-stairs to the morning-room to try it
over on the little piano which had belonged to Francis years before.
The instrument was rather thin in tone, and some of the notes were out
of tune, but Mrs. Goodman promised before she left her, to send for a
man from Renwick next morning to put it in order, so that it could be
taken up-stairs to the sitting-room.

Turning over the songs, which were, of course, quite out of date, and
mostly of the highly sentim