han any one except Power,"
and as he spoke, a quiet tear rolled slowly down Daubeny's face.

Walter only pressed his hand. "You can't think how I pitied you,
Walter, in that accident about Paton's manuscript. When all the fellows
were cutting you, and abusing you, my heart used to bleed for you; you
used to go about looking so miserable, so much as if all your chances of
life were over. I'm afraid I did very little for you then, but I
_would_ have done anything. I felt as if I could have given you my
right-hand."

"But, Dubbs, you were the first who spoke to me after that happened, the
first who wasn't ashamed to walk with me. You can't think how grateful
I felt to you for it; it rolled a cold weight from me. It was like
stretching a saving hand to one who was drowning; for every one knew how
good a fellow _you_ were, and your countenance was worth everything to
me just then."

"You really felt so?" said Daubeny, brightening up, while a faint flush
rested for a moment on his pale face; "O Walter, it makes me happy to
hear you say so." There was a silence, and, with Walter's hand still in
his, he fell into a sweet sleep, with a smile upon his face. When he
was quite asleep, Walter gently removed his hand, smoothed his pillow,
looked affectionately at him for a moment, and stole silently from the
room.

"How did you leave him?" asked Henderson eagerly, when Walter rejoined
him in Mr Percival's room.

"Sleeping soundly. I hope it will do him good. I did not know how much
you cared for him, Flip."

"That's because I always made him a butt," said Henderson, remorsefully;
"but I didn't really think he minded it, or I wouldn't have done so. I
hardly knew myself that I liked him so. It was a confounded shame of me
to worry him as I was always doing. Conceited donkey that I was, I was
always trying to make him seem stupid; yet all the while I could have
stood by him cap in hand. O Walter, I hope he is not going to die!"

"O no, I hope not; and don't be miserable at the thought of teasing him,
Flip; it was all in fun, and he was never wounded by any word of yours.
Remember how he used to tell you that he was all the time laughing at
you, not you at him. Come a turn on the shore, and let's take Power or
Ken with us."

"Sociable grosbeaks, again," said Henderson, laughing in the midst of
his sorrow.

"Yes," said Walter; "never mind. There are but few birds of the sort
after all."

They found Eden with