re I would prefer to
send you. It would be invaluable to you to pass your entire
convalescence here, and go home only when you are completely recovered.
But I can't arrange it very well. The Charity Hospital is for sick
people."

"And where is the place for convalescents?"

"There is none," replied the physician.

"I shouldn't want to go to it, myself," said Richling, lolling
pleasantly on his pillow; "all I should ask is strength to get home,
and I'd be off."

The Doctor looked another way.

"The sick are not the wise," he said, abstractedly. "However, in your
case, I should let you go to your wife as soon as you safely could." At
that he fell into so long a reverie that Richling studied every line of
his face again and again.

A very pleasant thought was in the convalescent's mind the while. The
last three days had made it plain to him that the Doctor was not only
his friend, but was willing that Richling should be his.

At length the physician spoke:--

"Mary is wonderfully like Alice, Richling."

"Yes?" responded Richling, rather timidly. And the Doctor continued:--

"The same age, the same stature, the same features. Alice was a shade
paler in her style of beauty, just a shade. Her hair was darker; but
otherwise her whole effect was a trifle quieter, even, than Mary's. She
was beautiful,--outside and in. Like Mary, she had a certain richness of
character--but of a different sort. I suppose I would not notice the
difference if they were not so much alike. She didn't stay with me
long."

"Did you lose her--here?" asked Richling, hardly knowing how to break
the silence that fell, and yet lead the speaker on.

"No. In Virginia." The Doctor was quiet a moment, and then resumed:--

"I looked at your wife when she was last in my office, Richling; she
had a little timid, beseeching light in her eyes that is not usual with
her--and a moisture, too; and--it seemed to me as though Alice had come
back. For my wife lived by my moods. Her spirits rose or fell just as my
whim, conscious or unconscious, gave out light or took on shadow." The
Doctor was still again, and Richling only indicated his wish to hear
more by shifting himself on his elbow.

"Do you remember, Richling, when the girl you had been bowing down to
and worshipping, all at once, in a single wedding day, was transformed
into your adorer?"

"Yes, indeed," responded the convalescent, with beaming face. "Wasn't
it wonderful? I couldn't credit my s