r he never did talk about such things. But I know
that he will be delighted to see you. Sometimes he has said that he
thought you had been in Egypt quite long enough."

"Is he so very ill, then?"

"Indeed he is; very ill. You'll be shocked when you see him: you'll
find him so much altered. He knows that it cannot last long, and he
is quite reconciled."

"Will you send up to let him know that I am here?"

"Yes, now--immediately. Caroline is with him;" and then Miss Baker
left the room.

Caroline is with him! It was so singular to hear her mentioned as one
of the same family with himself; to have to meet her as one sharing
the same interests with him, bound by the same bonds, anxious to
relieve the same suffering. She had said that they ought to be as far
as the poles asunder; and yet fortune, unkind fortune, would bring
them together! As he was thinking of this, the door opened gently,
and she was in the room with him.

She, too, was greatly altered. Not that her beauty had faded, or that
the lines of her face were changed; but her gait and manners were
more composed; her dress was so much more simple, that, though not
less lovely, she certainly looked older than when he had last seen
her. She was thinner too, and, in the light-gray silk which she wore,
seemed to be taller, and to be paler too.

She walked up to him, and putting out her hand, said some word or two
which he did not hear; and he uttered something which was quite as
much lost on her, and so their greeting was over. Thus passed their
first interview, of which he had thought so much in looking forward
to it for the last few hours, that his mind had been estranged from
his uncle.

"Does he know I am here?"

"Yes. You are to go up to him. You know the room?"

"The same he always had?"

"Oh, yes; the same." And then, creeping on tiptoe, as men do in such
houses, to the infinite annoyance of the invalids whom they wish to
spare, he went upstairs, and stood by his uncle's bed.

Miss Baker was on the other side, and the sick man's face was turned
towards her. "You had better come round here, George," said she. "It
would trouble Mr. Bertram to move."

"She means that I can't stir," said the old man, whose voice was
still sharp, though no longer loud. "I can't turn round that way.
Come here." And so George walked round the bed.

He literally would not have known his uncle, so completely changed
was the face. It was not only that it was haggard, thi