n up, as if an angel's wing had swept
over it, when the two gentle taps at the door heralded young Jessie!
How his boyish reverence, mixed with boyish care, gave his wasted
features an expression almost unearthly, as he hung over her so
protectingly, so tenderly, so adoringly! It was so different from a
man's love! There was something so exquisitely pure and spiritual in
it--something so reverential and so chivalrous--it would have been
almost a sin to have had that love grow out into a man's strong
passion! The flowers she brought him--and seldom did a day pass
without a fresh supply of violets, and, when the weather was warmer,
of primroses and cowslips, from her gentle hand--all these were
cherished more than gold would have been cherished; the books she lent
him were never from his side; if she touched one of the paltry
ornaments on the chimney-piece, that ornament was transferred to his
own private table; and the chair she used was always kept apart, and
sacred to her return.

It was very beautiful to watch all these manifestations: for I did
watch them, first from my own window, then in the house, in the midst
of the lonely family, comforting when I could not aid, and sharing in
the griefs I could not lessen. Under the new influence, the boy gained
such loveliness and spiritualism, that his face had an angelic
character, which, though it made young Jessie feel a strange kind of
loving awe for the sick boy, betokened to me, and to his mother, that
his end was not far off.

He was now too weak to sit up, excepting for a small part of the day;
and I feared that he would soon become too weak to teach, even in his
gentle way, and with such a gentle pupil. But the Latin exercises
still held their place; the books lying on the sofa instead of on the
table, and Jessie sitting by him on a stool, where he could overlook
her as she read: this was all the change; unless, indeed, that Jessie
read aloud more than formerly, and not always out of a Latin book.
Sometimes it was poetry, and sometimes it was the Bible that she read
to him; and then he used to stop her, and pour forth such eloquent,
such rapturous remarks on what he heard, that Jessie used to sit and
watch him like a young angel holding converse with a spirit. She was
beginning to love him very deeply in her innocent, girlish,
unconscious way; and I used to see her bounding step grow sad and
heavy as, day by day, her brother-like tutor seemed to be sinking from
ea