make. I had
got up a few rounds of the ladder when an adverse fate dragged me down.
Being a free man once more, I must struggle up again as quickly as may
be."

"Oh, for that matter," I returned, in the same tone, "I had some part,
perhaps, in the adverse fate you speak of; so it is but fair that I
should make you what recompense I can. I am an admirable nurse; and you
will gain time, if you will deliver yourself up to my care, and not go
back to Coke and Chitty till I give you leave. Seriously, William, I
fear you do not know how ill you are, and how unsafe it is for you to
go on with business."

He yielded without much persuasion, and came home to us. Those were
happy days. William and I were constantly together. I read to him, I
sung to him, and played chess with him; on mild days I drove him out in
my own little pony-carriage. Did he love me all this time? I could not
tell. Never by look or tone did he intimate that the old affection yet
lived in his heart. I fancied he felt as I with him,--perfect content
in my companionship, without a thought or wish beyond. We were made for
each other; our tastes, our habits of mind and feeling, fully
harmonized; had we been born brother and sister, we should have
preferred each other to all the world, and, remaining single for each
other's sakes, have passed our lives together.

So the time wore on, sweetly and placidly, and only I seemed to notice
the failure in our invalid; but I watched for it too keenly, too
closely, to be blinded. The occasional rallies of strength that gave
John such hope, and cheered William himself so greatly, did not deceive
me; I knew they were but the fluctuations of his malady. Changes in the
weather, or a damp east wind, did not account to me for his relapses; I
knew he was in the grasp of a fell, a fatal disease; it might let him
go awhile, give him a little respite, as a cat does the mouse she has
caught,--but he never could escape,--his doom was fixed.

But you may be sure I gave him no hint of it, and he never seemed to
suspect it for himself. One could not believe such blindness possible,
did we not see it verified in so many instances, year after year.

Often, now, I thought of a passage in an old book I used to read with
many a heart-quake in my girlish days. It ran thus:--"Perhaps we may
see you flattering yourself, through a long, lingering illness, that
you shall still recover, and putting off any serious reflection and
conversation