O God bless this gentle Christian man!"

Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding
his hand, and we both felt happy.

"How long, dear Joe?"

"Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old
chap?"

"Yes, Joe."

"It's the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June."

"And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?"

"Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your
being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and
being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of
walking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and
marriage were the great wish of his hart--"

"It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you
said to Biddy."

"Which it were," said Joe, "that how you might be amongst strangers, and
that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment
might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, 'Go to him,
without loss of time.' That," said Joe, summing up with his judicial
air, "were the word of Biddy. 'Go to him,' Biddy say, 'without loss of
time.' In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you," Joe added, after a
little grave reflection, "if I represented to you that the word of that
young woman were, 'without a minute's loss of time.'"

There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked
to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at
stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that
I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay
quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.

Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him,
it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the
pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its
curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as
the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and
the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own
writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles,
Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the
pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his
sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was
necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his le