whisper, and said, fervently, "Thank
God!" Who was he? She had asked them all, and no one would tell her. Who
was he?

The next day came; and she heard her door opened softly. Brisk footsteps
tripped into the room; a lithe little figure advanced to the bed-side.
Was it a dream again? No! There he was in his own evergreen reality,
with the copious flow of language pouring smoothly from his lips; with
the lambent dash of humor twinkling in his party-colored eyes--there he
was, more audacious, more persuasive, more respectable than ever, in a
suit of glossy black, with a speckless white cravat, and a rampant shirt
frill--the unblushing, the invincible, unchangeable Wragge!

"Not a word, my dear girl!" said the captain, seating himself
comfortably at the bedside, in his old confidential way. "I am to do
all the talking; and, I think you will own, a more competent man for
the purpose could not possibly have been found. I am really
delighted--honestly delighted, if I may use such an apparently
inappropriate word--to see you again, and to see you getting well. I
have often thought of you; I have often missed you; I have often said
to myself--never mind what! Clear the stage, and drop the curtain on the
past. _Dum vivimus, vivamus!_ Pardon the pedantry of a Latin quotation,
my dear, and tell me how I look. Am I, or am I not, the picture of a
prosperous man?"

Magdalen attempted to answer him. The captain's deluge of words flowed
over her again in a moment.

"Don't exert yourself," he said. "I'll put all your questions for you.
What have I been about? Why do I look so remarkably well off? And how
in the world did I find my way to this house? My dear girl, I have been
occupied, since we last saw each other, in slightly modifying my old
professional habits. I have shifted from Moral Agriculture to Medical
Agriculture. Formerly I preyed on the public sympathy, now I prey on the
public stomach. Stomach and sympathy, sympathy and stomach--look them
both fairly in the face when you reach the wrong side of fifty, and you
will agree with me that they come to much the same thing. However that
may be, here I am--incredible as it may appear--a man with an income,
at last. The founders of my fortune are three in number. Their names are
Aloes, Scammony, and Gamboge. In plainer words, I am now living--on a
Pill. I made a little money (if you remember) by my friendly connection
with you. I made a little more by the happy decease (_Requies