ot find it unpleasant to be nursed and looked after,
and even to obey peremptory orders.

A month later, Mary came into the room quietly, one afternoon, when
he was sitting and looking into the fire; as his father and O'Grady
had driven over to Killnally. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he did
not hear her enter.

Thinking that he was asleep, she paused at the door. A moment later
she heard a deep sigh. She came forward at once.

"What are you sighing about, Terence? Your leg is not hurting you,
is it?"

"No, dear, it has pretty well given up hurting me."

"What were you sighing about, then?"

He was silent for a minute, and then said:

"Well you see, one cannot help sighing a little at the thought that
one is laid up, a useless man, when one is scarce twenty-one."

"You have done your work, Terence. You have made a name for
yourself, when others are just leaving college and thinking of
choosing a profession. You have done more, in five years, than most
men achieve in all their lifetime.

"This is the first time I have heard you grumble. I know it is
hard, but what has specially upset you, today?"

"I suppose I am a little out of sorts," he said. "I was thinking,
perhaps, how different it might have been, if it hadn't been for
that unlucky shell."

"You mean that you might have gone on to Burgos, and fallen in the
assault there; or shared in that dreadful retreat to the frontier
again."

"No. I was not thinking of Spain, nor even of the army. I was
thinking of here."

"But you said, over and over again, Terence, that you will be able
to ride, and drive, and get about like other people, in time."

"Yes, dear. In many respects it will be the same, but not in one
respect."

Then he broke off.

"I am an ungrateful brute. I have everything to make me happy--a
comfortable home, a good father, and a dear little sister to nurse
me."

"What did I tell you, sir," she said, after a pause, "when I said
goodbye to you at Coimbra? That I would rather be your cousin. You
were quite hurt, and I said that you were a silly boy, and would
understand better, some day."

"I have understood, since," he said, "and was glad that you were
not my sister; but now, you see, things have altogether changed,
and I must be content with sistership."

The girl looked in the fire, and then said, in a low voice:

"Why, Terence?"

"You know why," he said. "I have had no one to think of but you,
for the last four years. Your let