get well," said Agatha joyfully, as she watched her
patient returning to ordinary household ways; only lying down a little
more than Anne was used to do, and speaking seldom and low always, for
fear of the bleeding at the lungs. "I knew you must get well, but I
never saw anybody get well so fast as you."

"I had need," Anne answered. "I have so much to do."

"That you always have. What a busy rich life--rich in the best
sense--yours has been! How unlike mine!"

"I hope so--in many things," said Anne, to herself. "But I must not
speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window.
Where is Frederick?"

"He has been riding up and down the country day after day--he seems to
find no rest."

Anne looked sorry. "And we are so quiet here!"

It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through
whose wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old,
attached servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous
that any one should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her
own home to do it. Yet--the bitter thought followed her ever--this last
was small renunciation. No one would miss her there!

During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been
shut from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and
beside the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes
each day, when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a
soft, reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to
see a different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too.
Neither knew how or when the change came--but it was there.

She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and
told her "that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no
longer"--ah, that happy "but!"--he went away to his own little house at
Kingcombe, and busied himself there for three days.

"Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?" said Anne,
looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha,
who stood at the window watching down the road.

"Did you want my husband!"

"Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come."

"Why do you think so?"

"Why?--Child, come here." And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery
leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over
her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can
con