t know how weak,
and sick, and changed he is. Just think of his lodging with Mrs. Buncher
in London, and coming out as a second-class passenger."

"Did he do that?" Miss Betsey asked, quickly, while the lines about her
mouth softened as she went up stairs to meet the _dude_, who looked like
anything but a dude as he rose to greet her, in his shabby clothes,
which, nevertheless, were worn with a certain grace which made you
forget their shabbiness, while his manner, though a little constrained,
had in it that air of good breeding and courtesy inseparable from Neil.

Miss Betsey had expected to see him thin and worn, but she was not
prepared for the white, wasted face, which turned so wistfully to her,
or for the expression of the dark eyes so like her brother Hugh,
Archie's father. Hugh had been her favorite brother, the one nearest her
age, with whom she had played and romped in the old garden at
Stoneleigh. He had been with her at Monte Carlo when her lover was
brought to her dead, and in the frightened face which had looked at her
then there was the same look which she saw now in Neil, as he came
slowly forward. She had expected a dandy, with enough of invalidism
about him to make him interesting to himself at least; but she saw a
broken, sorry young man, as far removed from dandyism as it was possible
for Neil to be, and she felt herself melting at once.

He was her own flesh and blood, nearer to her even than Bessie; he was
sick; he was subdued; he had crossed as a second-class passenger, and
this went further toward reconciling her to him than anything he could
have done.

"Why Neil, my boy," she said, as she took both his hands, "I am sorry to
see you so weak. Sit down; don't try to stand; or rather, lie down, and
I will sit beside you."

She arranged his pillows and made him lie down again, he protesting the
while, and saying, with a faint smile:

"It hardly seems right for a great hulking fellow like me to be lying
here, but I am very tired and weak," and in proof thereof the
perspiration came out in great drops upon his forehead and hands, and
about his pallid lips.

Miss Betsey did not talk long with him that night, but when she left
him she promised to come again next day and bring him some wine, which
she had made herself, and which was sure to do him good.

"Sleep well to-night, and you will be better to-morrow," she said.

But Neil did not sleep well, and he was not better on the morrow, and
for