n the gravel outside.

It was not a cart but a cab, and it stopped at the door. Cabs were not
very familiar in Birchmead, and the appearance of this one at Mrs.
Chigwin's cottage brought curious eyes to almost every window looking
out upon the green. There was not much to reward curiosity--only a lady,
dressed in a long fur-lined cloak, with a quiet little bonnet, and a
traveling-bag in her hand, who knocked at Mrs. Chigwin's door, and,
after a short confabulation, dismissed the cabman and went in. At any
rate it was something for Birchmead to know that it had a visitor who
had come in a Dorminster cab. That was an incident which for these good
souls distinguished the day from the one which went before and the one
which came after it.

It was Lettice Campion who thus stirred the languid pulse of Birchmead.
She had found her way like a ministering angel to the bedside of Alan's
aunt, within three or four days of her arrival in England.

Mrs. Chigwin felt the utmost confidence in her visitor, both from what
she had heard of her before and from what she saw of her as soon as she
entered the cottage. Lettice could not have been kinder to her mother
than she was to the poor crippled woman who had no claim upon her
service. She told Mrs. Chigwin that so long as she was at Birchmead she
should be Mrs. Bundlecombe's nurse, and she evidently meant to keep her
word. Aunt Bessy was comforted beyond measure by her appearance, and
still more by the few words which Lettice whispered to her, in response
to the forlorn appeal of the old woman's eyes--so unutterably eloquent
of the thoughts that were throbbing in the hearts of both--

"I shall wait for him when he comes out!"

"God bless you!" said Aunt Bessy.

"The world has been cruel to him. He has only us two; we must try to
comfort him," whispered Lettice.

"I am past it, dearie. He has no one but you. You are enough for him."

And she went on in the slow and painful way which had become habitual to
her.

"I have been tortured in my heart, thinking of his coming out upon the
weary world, all alone, broken down may be, with none to take him by the
hand, and me lying here upon my back, unable to help him. Oh, it is
hard! And sometimes in a dream I see his mother, Lucy, my own little
sister that died so many years ago, floating over the walls of his
prison, and signing to me to fetch him out. But now she will rest in her
grave, and I myself could die to-night and be happy, b