not content him.

It is not to every one that the gift of nursing is vouchsafed. I think I
am clumsy. Try as I will, my hands are not so quick and light and deft
as hers--my dress rustles more, and my voice is less soothing.

And so it is always "Barbara! Barbara!" And Barbara is always
there--always ready.

The lovely flush that outdid the garden-flowers has left her cheeks
indeed, and her eyelids are drooped and heavy; but her eyes shine with
as steady a sweetness as ever; for God has lit in them a lamp that no
weariness can put out.

Sometimes I think that if one of the lovely spirits that wait upon God
in heaven were sent down to minister here below, he would not be very
different in look and way, and holy tender speech, from our Barbara.

Whether it be through her nursing, or by the strength of his own
constitution, and the tenacious vitality of youth, or, perhaps, the help
of all three, Algy pulls through.

I think he has looked Death in the face, as nearly as any one ever did
without falling utterly into his cold embrace, but he pulls through.

By very slow, small, and faltering steps, he creeps back to
convalescence. His recovery is a tedious business, with many tiresome
checks, and many ebbings and flowings of the tide of life; but--he
lives. Weak as any little tottering child--white as the sheets he lies
on; with prominent cheek-bones, and great and languid eyes, he is given
back to us.

Life, worsted daily in a thousand cruel fights, has gained one little
victory. To-day, for the first time, we all three at once leave
him--leave him coolly and quietly asleep, and dine together in Mrs.
Huntley's little dusk-shaded dining-room.

We are quite a party. Mother is here, come to rejoice over her restored
first-born son; the Brat is here; he has run over from Oxford. Musgrave
is here. I am in such spirits; I do not know what has come to me. It
seems to me as if I were newly born into a fresh and altogether good and
jovial world.

Not even the presence of Musgrave lays any constraint upon my spirits.

For the first time since the dark day in Brindley Wood, I meet him
without embarrassment. I answer him: I even address him now and then.

All the small civilizations of life--the flower-garnished table; the
lamps softly burning; the evening-dresses (for the first time we have
dressed for dinner)--fill me with a keen pleasure, that I should have
thought such little etceteras were quite incapable of affording