ng. Marginal notes suggested
by the text of Sismondi?

'What, home so early!' was his exclamation, on discovering me.

Leonora looked, up with a deep rose in her dark cheeks, a dangerous fire
melting in her eyes. I had left her pale, with a headache.

'You are better, I conclude. I expected to find you among your pillows,'
said I, accusative.

'I have cured her,' said Fred, coming forward and clasping my hands in
his firm, cool hold. 'What ails you, mamma? You look as if you had a
fever, and wickedly handsome. What have you been about?' He slipped off
my ermine cloak, and kissed me with a mixture of pride and love. The boy
bewildered me.

As fate would have it, Fred was right. I felt very ill. I believe I
_resisted_ a fever, for I have a sensation of struggle connected with
that sickness. But I cannot separate the pictures of my distempered
fancy from the actualities of the time. Leonora took devoted care of me.
Night after night Fred sat by me, and they relieved each other. Like one
bound in an enchantment, I lay unable to prevent their mutual
confidence, and the return of her young lover's adoring regard.

He sat beside her as the fire burned low; his blonde hair touched her
dusky cheek as he bent over her.

'Leo, darling, I wish I was sick, like mamma.'

'Hush!' said she.

'Then you would soothe me, and part my hair with your soft fingers, that
refuse to touch mine now. You would be sorry for me, and give me a
little caressing, and I should be so happy I would not get well.'

'Don't talk so, Fred. You used to be an even-tempered, comfortable kind
of young man to know. But now you are really teasing.'

'Do I really annoy you?'

'Very much.'

'And you don't believe in me. Sometimes a dumb kind of philosophy
possesses me, and I say to myself, let her think of me as she will. I
cannot be frank, and must take the consequences. Then again----'

Here she rose, and he put both arms around her. Audacious boy!

'Fred!' was uttered in a stifled voice.

'Promise me to send off Christopher,' ejaculated the young man.

The corners of the room seemed to stretch away indefinitely. A heavy
perfume suffocated me. I groaned. In another moment Leonora was beside
me, and the fresh air was blowing in from a window my son had opened.

I made haste to get well. The physicians say my constitution and good
nursing saved me; but it was all resolution. My _will_ was stronger than
the disease. As soon as I could sit up and