im least was the fellow's patience under his
severity, which he seemed either not to feel or not to mind. It was of a
piece with the behavior of the rascally boy whom he had cuffed for
frightening Cynthia and her little brother long ago, and he wondered what
final malevolence it portended.

Jeff said, as if their controversy were at an end and they might now turn
to more personal things: "You look pretty slim, Mr. Westover. A'n't there
something I can do for you-get you? I've come in with a message from
mother. She says if you ever want to get that winter view of Lion's Head,
now's your time. She wants you to come up there; she and Cynthia both do.
They can make you as comfortable as you please, and they'd like to have a
visit from you. Can't you go?"

Westover shook his head ruefully. "It's good of them, and I want you to
thank them for me. But I don't know when I'm going to get out again."

"Oh, you'll soon get out," said Jeff. "I'm going to look after you a
little," and this time Westover was too weak to protest. He did not
forbid Jeff's taking off his overcoat; he suffered him to light his
spirit-lamp and make a punch of the whiskey which he owned the doctor was
giving him; and when Jeff handed him the steaming glass, and asked him,
"How's that?" he answered, with a pleasure in it which he knew to be
deplorable, "It's fine."

Jeff stayed the whole evening with him, and made him more comfortable
than he had been since his cold began. Westover now talked seriously and
frankly with him, but no longer so harshly, and in his relenting he felt
a return of his old illogical liking for him. He fancied in Durgin's
kindness to himself an indirect regret, and a desire to atone for what he
had done, and he said: "The effect is in you--the worst effect. I don't
think either of the young Lyndes very exemplary people. But you'd be
doing yourself a greater wrong than you've done then if you didn't
recognize that you had been guilty toward them."

Jeff seemed struck by this notion. "What do you want me to do? What can I
do? Chase myself out of society? Something like that? I'm willing. It's
too easy, though. As I said, I've never been wanted much, there, and I
shouldn't be missed."

"Well, then, how would you like to leave it to the people at Lion's Head
to say what you should do?" Westover suggested.

"I shouldn't like it," said Jeff, promptly. "They'd judge it as you do--as
if they'd done it themselves. That's the reason wo