ly awoke.

After a little, the sights grew dim again, and the sounds sank into
silence. Sleep, the merciful, took her once more, and hushed her back to
repose.

Another day--and the sights were clearer, the sounds were louder.
Another--and she heard a man's voice, through the door, asking for
news from the sick-room. The voice was strange to her; it was always
cautiously lowered to the same quiet tone. It inquired after her, in the
morning, when she woke--at noon, when she took her refreshment--in the
evening, before she dropped asleep again. "Who is so anxious about me?"
That was the first thought her mind was strong enough to form--"Who is
so anxious about me?"

More days--and she could speak to the nurse at her bedside; she could
answer the questions of an elderly man, who knew far more about her than
she knew about herself, and who told her he was Mr. Merrick, the doctor;
she could sit up in bed, supported by pillows, wondering what had
happened to her, and where she was; she could feel a growing curiosity
about that quiet voice, which still asked after her, morning, noon, and
night, on the other side of the door.

Another day's delay--and Mr. Merrick asked her if she was strong enough
to see an old friend. A meek voice, behind him, articulating high in
the air, said, "It's only me." The voice was followed by the prodigious
bodily apparition of Mrs. Wragge, with her cap all awry, and one of
her shoes in the next room. "Oh, look at her! look at her!" cried Mrs.
Wragge, in an ecstasy, dropping on her knees at Magdalen's bedside, with
a thump that shook the house. "Bless her heart, she's well enough to
laugh at me already. 'Cheer, boys, cheer--!' I beg your pardon, doctor,
my conduct isn't ladylike, I know. It's my head, sir; it isn't _me._ I
must give vent somehow, or my head will burst!" No coherent sentence,
in answer to any sort of question put to her, could be extracted that
morning from Mrs. Wragge. She rose from one climax of verbal confusion
to another--and finished her visit under the bed, groping inscrutably
for the second shoe.

The morrow came--and Mr. Merrick promised that she should see another
old friend on the next day. In the evening, when the inquiring voice
asked after her, as usual, and when the door was opened a few inches to
give the reply, she answered faintly for herself: "I am better, thank
you." There was a moment of silence--and then, just as the door was
shut again, the voice sank to a