and defiant, and be her own old self. I thought it was a kind of
crisis, and that she would go on getting better and better--morally, I
mean. But she doesn't! At least, if she does, it is only by fits and
starts. Sometimes she is quite angelic for a whole day, and the next
morning is so crotchety and aggravating that it nearly drives one wild.
I suppose no one gets patient and long-suffering all at once; it is like
convalescence after an illness--up and down, up and down, all the time;
but it's disappointing to the nurses. She does try, poor dear, but it
must be difficult to go on trying when one day is exactly like the last,
and you do nothing but lie still, and your back aches, aches, aches.
Jim is not always present to lavish his devotion upon her, and now that
the first agitation is over we onlookers are getting used to seeing her
ill, and are less frantically attentive than at first, which, of course,
must be trying, too; but one cannot always live at high pressure. I
believe one would get callous about earthquakes if they only happened
often enough.

Summer is passing away and autumn coming on, and it grows damp and
mouldy, and we have to sit indoors for most of the day. When I have any
time to think of myself I feel so tired; and one day Vere said
abruptly--

"Babs, you are thin! Upon my word, child, I can see your cheek-bones.
What have you been doing to yourself?"

Thin! Blessed word! I leapt from my seat and rushed to the nearest
glass, and it was true! I stared, and stared, and wondered where my
eyes had been these last weeks. My cheeks had sunk till they were oval
instead of round. I looked altogether about half the old size. What
would the girls say if they could behold their old "Circle" now? It
used to be my ambition to be described as a "tall, slim girl," and now I
turned, and twisted, and attitudinised before that glass, and, honestly,
that was just exactly what I looked! I took hold of my dress, and it
bagged! I put my fingers inside my belt, and the whole hand slipped
through! My face of rapture made Vere laugh with almost the old trill.

"You goose! You look as if you had come into a fortune! I don't deny
that it is an improvement, but you mustn't overdo it. It would be too
hard luck for mother if we were both ill at the same time. All this
anxiety has been too much for you. I had better turn nurse, and let you
be patient for a little time, and I'll prescribe a little change