e her? I have been engrossed with my own affairs, my own
dreams of advancement. I wanted to have money again, but it was for her
sake and my mother's," with a lingering tremulous intonation. "She has
been too solitary, she has brooded over every thing. But she would not
go out, or see any company; and somehow it was our misfortune to grow up
without any warm, vital interest in each other. When I was a boy I used
to like it at your house, because your father and mother took such a
real delight in you. It is the pith of life. Poor father--he was very
proud of me, he gave his life for our pleasure and grandeur and reckless
extravagance, yet all the later years we were well-nigh strangers. Why
can't people get nearer to each other, Jack, or is it only given to the
very few? Does the greedy world swallow up every sentiment, every bit of
tenderness, and make a mock of it?"

"No, no! Nothing can quite kill it, thank God! You and I have proved
that. It may be smothered under dust and rubbish, and frozen with
neglect, but the germ will revive,--just as the brown woolly ball
evolves the fine delicate fern-leaf that it has held in its heart
through winter storms, you know. Don't blame yourself. Every soul has to
fight its own battle somewhere, with no day's-man between but God. We
get back to the old truth in spite of the new philosophies, and own in
our vanquished moments that we cannot _make_ strength, that ours is
only a broken reed, and the true upholding force must come from some
knowledge higher than our own."

Jack paused, strangely stirred in every fibre. He seldom essayed
sentiment: with him the deeds of life had to answer, rather than any
eloquence of words. He laid his strong, warm arm over Fred's shoulder,
the old boyish caress with which he had often comforted unknowingly.

"I think you have been doing nobly," he went on presently. "I did not
look to find you so brave and persevering, so earnest in thinking of
others; for, after all, a man's training does throw a great many
shackles about him."

Dr. Maverick entered at that moment. He had hurried off his
office-patients to come and spend an hour watching this case, which held
a fascinating interest for him. Some most unfavorable symptoms had
supervened, but he did not despair. The nurse had been regularly
trained, he had kept her busy in Yerbury the last year. He could trust
her to note the slightest variations.

Just now Miss Lawrence lay in a heavy stupor, so l