d her face to kiss her.

"Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?" was inquired in a
low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress.

"I think I am almost happy."

"You wish to drink? Your lips are parched."

She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth.

"Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?"

"I cannot eat."

"But soon your appetite will return; it _must_ return--that is, I pray
God it may."

In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms; and
while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew
her to her heart, and held her close gathered an instant.

"I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you always," said
Caroline.

Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor,
which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing.

"You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I
should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?"

"No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to
wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you
speak so quietly, and touch me so gently."

"I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but
never negligent."

Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny and Eliza became
ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain; she performed
all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient
remonstrated--faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long.
Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and
solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union.
Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs.
Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art
of performing little offices of service; but all now passed with such
ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to be cherished as
the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign of weariness in the latter
ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in
fact, no very hard duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it
hard.

With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet
such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded
like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or
death seldom intruded, had at first entertaine