intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in which the
books were jealously railed away from the people, and obtainable only
at an expenditure of time and red tape calculated to discourage any
ordinary taste for literature.

Chapter 16

Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I descended
the stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had been
the scene of the morning interview between us described some chapters
back.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you thought to
slip out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles which
have such nice effects on you. But you see I am up too early for you
this time. You are fairly caught."

"You discredit the efficacy of your own cure," I said, "by supposing
that such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences."

"I am very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here arranging some
flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and fancied
I detected something surreptitious in your step on the stairs."

"You did me injustice," I replied. "I had no idea of going out at all."

Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception was
purely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of what I
afterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet creature, in
pursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, had risen for the
last two or three mornings at an unheard-of hour, to insure against the
possibility of my wandering off alone in case I should be affected as
on the former occasion. Receiving permission to assist her in making up
the breakfast bouquet, I followed her into the room from which she had
emerged.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that you are quite done with those terrible
sensations you had that morning?"

"I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer," I
replied, "moments when my personal identity seems an open question. It
would be too much to expect after my experience that I should not have
such sensations occasionally, but as for being carried entirely off my
feet, as I was on the point of being that morning, I think the danger
is past."

"I shall never forget how you looked that morning," she said.

"If you had merely saved my life," I continued, "I might, perhaps, find
words to express my gratitude, but it was my reason you saved, and
there are no words that would not belittle my debt to you." I spoke