only a featherweight when the bewildered doctor helped her to alight--an
undoubted sprite and creature of romance. But to hear her arranging about
all the domestic necessities within, and disclosing her future plans
for the children, and all the order of that life of which she took the
charge so unhesitatingly, bewildered the mistress of the house as much
as it did the wondering doctor. The two together stood gazing at her as
she moved about the room, pouring forth floods of eager talk. Her words
were almost as rapid as her step,--her foot, light as it was, almost as
decided and firm as her resolutions. She was a wonder to behold as she
pushed about the furniture, and considered how it could be brightened
up and made more comfortable. Gazing at her with his silent lips apart,
Dr Rider sighed at the word. Comfortable! Was she to give her mind to
making Fred and his children comfortable--such a creature as this?
Involuntarily it occurred to Edward that, under such ministrations,
sundry changes might come over the aspect of that prim apartment in
which he had seen her first; the room with the bookcase and the red
curtains, and the prints over the mantelpiece--a very tidy, comfortable
room before any bewitching imp came to haunt it, and whisper suspicions
of its imperfection--the doctor's own retirement, where he had chewed
the cud of sweet and bitter fancies often enough, without much thought
of his surroundings. But Nettie now had taken possession of the prosaic
place, and, all unconscious of that spiritual occupation, was as busy
and as excited about Mrs Smith's lodgings at St Roque's Cottage as if it
were an ideal home she was preparing, and the life to be lived in it was
the brightest and most hopeful in the world.

When Dr Rider reached home that night, and took his lonely meal in his
lonely room, certain bitter thoughts of unequal fortune occupied the
young man's mind. Let a fellow be but useless, thankless, and heartless
enough, and people spring up on all sides to do his work for him, said
the doctor to himself, with a bitterness as natural as it was untrue.
The more worthless a fellow is, the more all the women connected with
him cling to him and make excuses for him, said Edward Rider in his
indignant heart. Mother and sister in the past--wife and Nettie now--to
think how Fred had secured for himself such perpetual ministrations,
by neglecting all the duties of life! No wonder an indignant pang
transfixed the lo