the more heavy and weary as it bore dark
foreshadowings of some momentous event. If that event would only come,
whatever it was, and sever this Gordian knot of doubt!

The days passed slowly: the leaden sands dropped one by one. The roads
were too bad for walking; so Lizzie was obliged to confine her
restlessness to the narrow bounds of the empty house, or to an
occasional journey to the village, where people sickened her by their
dull indifference to her spiritual agony. Still they could not fail to
remark how poorly Miss Crowe was looking. This was true, and Lizzie knew
it. I think she even took a certain comfort in her pallor and in her
failing interest in her dress. There was some satisfaction in displaying
her white roses amid the apple-cheeked prosperity of Main Street. At
last Miss Cooper, the Doctor's sister, spoke to her:--

"How is it, Elizabeth, you look so pale, and thin, and worn out? What
you been doing with yourself? Falling in love, eh? It isn't right to be
so much alone. Come down and stay with us awhile,--till Mrs. Ford and
John come back," added Miss Cooper, who wished to put a cheerful face on
the matter.

For Miss Cooper, indeed, any other face would have been difficult.
Lizzie agreed to come. Her hostess was a busy, unbeautiful old maid,
sister and housekeeper of the village physician. Her occupation here
below was to perform the forgotten tasks of her fellow-men,--to pick up
their dropped stitches, as she herself declared. She was never idle, for
her general cleverness was commensurate with mortal needs. Her own story
was, that she kept moving, so that folks couldn't see how ugly she was.
And, in fact, her existence was manifest through her long train of good
deeds,--just as the presence of a comet is shown by its tail. It was
doubtless on the above principle that her visage was agitated by a
perpetual laugh.

Meanwhile more news had been coming from Virginia. "What an absurdly
long letter you sent John," wrote Mrs. Ford, in acknowledging the
receipt of the boxes. "His first lucid moment would be very short, if he
were to take upon himself to read your effusions. Pray keep your long
stories till he gets well." For a fortnight the young soldier remained
the same,--feverish, conscious only at intervals. Then came a change for
the worse, which, for many weary days, however, resulted in nothing
decisive. "If he could only be moved to Glenham, home, and old sights,"
said his mother, "I should have