of it. But a
thing atrophied as she was could not think or feel, and so he went
without the small tendernesses that would have come to him had Rose, the
soft little Englishwoman, lived. She sat up with him night after night
patiently. She gave him milk, and she and Marcella went without it that
he should have enough. She gave him the inevitable porridge and broth,
but he turned away from the things he had eaten all his life in disgust.

"Is there any sort of thing I could have to put a little grip into me,
doctor?" he asked, and was ordered beef-tea, various patent foods and
eggs, all things very difficult to come by on the stern hillside.

"It seems to me, Janet, if I could have some of these foods and drugs
they advertise so much I might get some strength to bear it," he said.
So she got him half a dozen of the different well-advertised things to
try. He had them arrayed on a table by his bed, and took immense
pleasure in reminding her or Marcella when it was time for them. The
doctor, who guessed that money was scarce, suggested that Aunt Janet
should sell some of the old oak furniture, and to her surprise a man
from London thought it worth while, from her description, to come all
the way to Lashnagar to look at it. She loved it because it enshrined
the family story; the scratches on the refectory table showed where
heavy-clad feet had been planted as Lashcairns of old had pledged each
other in fiery bowls. The heavy oak chairs had each a name and a
history, but until the man from London came Aunt Janet had not realized
their value. So they went away, taken quietly and stealthily out of the
house for fear Andrew should know. In the book-room only a few books
were left to keep the dusty pennant a melancholy companionship.

But the patent foods and drugs did no good; they reminded Marcella
irresistibly of the soil and water she had laid hopefully round the
bursting apple tree. As he lay once, with all the wheels of life running
at half rate after a sedative, he said to Marcella, who had been
reading to him:

"I feel as if I'm not in my body, Marcella. Oh, Marcella, help me to get
a grip on my body! I can't make it do what I'm tellin' it to do! Look!"
and he held up one gaunt arm feebly, to let it drop a minute later.
"Look! Marcella--once I could break men with my hands!"

She stared at him, choking. There was nothing she could think to say. In
her mother's weakness her lips had overflowed with tendernesses; for h