n that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was
not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she pleased.
Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never tired of
seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or colourless, or
flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light, her
cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things pleased in
moderation, but with constancy.

Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,
never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever _do_
love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited the end.

For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the
peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager
look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite
within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and
farther beyond it.

One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
in order to consult him.

The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes
elapsed--ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be
doing? Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still