n't know she
was sick."

"Well, I say!" exclaimed the Parson. "Why, it's all over town that you
_wuz_, and that you found her so prostrated with relaxation of the
nerves that her husband couldn't hold her still! You've heard, of co'se,
that he's got back at last? Isn't it pathetic? I've been talkin' about
it to Brother Garnet--you passed him just now, didn't you?--and as he
says, her husband goes off, a walkin' ruin, to be gone three months,
stays twelve, and arrives back totally unexpected on this mawnin's
six-o'clock train, a-callin' himself _cu'ud_! Brother Coffin, _you_
don't believe that, _do_ you? Why, as Brother Garnet says, the drinkin'
habit is as much a moral as a physical sickness, and the man that can
make common talk of it in his own case to ev'y Tom, Dick, and Harry, evm
down to the niggehs, ain't so much as tetched the deepest root uv his
trouble, much less cu'ud! Why, Doctor, Brother Garnet see him,
himself!--a-tellin' that C'nelius Leggett!--and pulled him away! Po'
Brother Garnet! Johanna, I wish, betwixt the Doctor an' you, you could
make him look betteh. His load of usefulness is too great. I declare,
Brother Coffin, he was that tiud this evenin' that evm here, where you'd
expect him to seem fresh and happy in his new joy, he looked as if, if
it wa'n't faw the wrong of the thing, he'd almost be willin' to call
upon the rocks and the mountains to fall on him and hide him.--But I
mustn't detain you!"

The physician drove on, and by and by was leaving directions with
Johanna and her protectors, Tom Hersey and his wife. "And, Tom, mind
you, _no visitors_. It's his own wish. Good-night.--O!--that young Mr.
Fair. March tells me he's expecting him any time within the next few
days, to help lay the corner-stone of this new building up at the
colored college; Fair Hall, yes. Whenever he comes take him right up to
see March. I promised John you would!"

LXXVII.

"LINES OF LIGHT ON A SULLEN SEA"

From the first hour of Johanna's attendance March began to mend. Whence
she came, whither she went, as she moved in and out so pleasantly, he
never thought to ask, and never found out that her bed was a pallet laid
on the stair-landing just at his door.

The young bloods down in the street were keenly amused. "Doctor, if he
was anybody but John March aw she anybody but Johanna"--the rest was too
funny for words. "How is he to-day, anyhow? Improving rap'--well! good
fo' that! Come, gentlemen, let's--Come