ed (but rolling fast
as ever), and the country bright with dew. Familiar sounds came by degrees
into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy;
faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly how he
was. Paul always answered for himself, "I am better. I am a great deal
better, thank you. Tell papa so."

By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of
carriages and carts, and people passing and re-passing; and would fall
asleep, or be troubled with a restless, and uneasy sense again--the child
could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking
moments--of that rushing river.

"Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "It is bearing
me away I think."

But Floy could always soothe and reassure him: and it was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest.

"You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you now." They would prop
him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would recline
the while she lay beside him, bending forwards oftentimes to kiss her.

Thus the flush of the day in its heat and light, would gradually decline;
and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors--they used to assemble
downstairs and come up together--and the room was so quiet and Paul was so
observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they said) that
he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches.

The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at
Doctor Blimber's--except Florence; Florence never changed. Old Mrs.
Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to someone else and Paul
was quite content to shut his eyes again and see what happened next,
without emotion. But one figure with its head upon its hand returned so
often and remained so long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking,
never being spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to
wonder languidly if it were real.

"Floy," he said, "what is that?"

"Where, dearest?"

"There, at the bottom of the bed."

"There's nothing there except papa."

The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside said:
"My own boy! Don't you know me?"

Paul looked it in the face and thought, was this his father? But the face
so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in
pai