Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden,
carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little
"toy"--"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a
thank-offerin'."

"I wouldn't take him,"--Mary answered--"He's perhaps the only friend the
poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to
want him."

And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a
day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn,
when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair
for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought
him his breakfast, and added--

"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy
and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that
you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"

This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!"
That would be strange indeed--almost impossible! It was quite early in
the morning when she thus spoke--about seven o'clock,--and he was not to
get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary--so he
lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he
found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which
opened up great possibilities. His dream,--the vague indefinable
longing which possessed him for love--pure, disinterested, unselfish
love,--seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow
himself to hope too much,--he preferred to look on the darker side of
probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and
comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts
dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the
face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel
through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of
death,--and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless
graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so
delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing
expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular
morning she was busy ironing;--and she had left the door open between
his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of
fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown
back to allow a full