'You are better to-day, uncle,' Lucy said, as she stood beside his chair and looked down at the worn old face, and the white hair on the pillow.
'Better? I am quite well, my dear. I have just come in from fishing, and I am tired. I have caught quite a large basket, and I have walked a long way beside the river. Dick wouldn't wait for me. He went home early. Perhaps it was as well.'
Lucy looked anxiously at the nurse.
'He is better in himself,' Nurse Brannan said softly. 'He has had a good night, and has awoke much refreshed, but his memory is gone. I don't think it will ever be better.'
Nurse Brannan had made a great change in the sick-room; it didn't look like a sick-room. It was as light and bright as it well could be on such a dull day, and there was a small fire burning in the grate, and a big bowl of lilac on the table—the Master was very fond of lilac.
Lucy ran her fingers through the sweet pale-purple buds as she stood beside the table. She was not fond of picking things to pieces like the Science girls, who can never see a flower without tearing its heart out. She was content to bury her face in a posy and drink in its sweetness and beauty. She buried her face in the bunch of lilac as she stood beside the Master's chair, and the old man watched her with his dim eyes.
They suddenly brightened as he watched her; they were dim no longer; they were bright and shining. Something in her attitude, or in the smell of the flowers, had brought back to him the old time: the old lane that skirted the farm with the blossoming hawthorn-trees on either side, and the orchard with the smell of the apple-blossom, and the lilac hanging over the garden-wall.
'Ah,' he said, 'you picked this from the old tree by the gate. I noticed it was coming into bloom this morning when I passed, and the pink thorn is in bud, and the orchard is a sight to see.
The fragrance of the old days was about him, and its colours were unfaded. Lucy left him babbling to the nurse about the flowers that used to grow in the old garden of his childhood. His heart, like that of a little child, had gone back at the close of the journey to the place from which he had first set out.
Cousin Mary was with Mrs. Rae; she had been up with her all night. There was as much need for nursing here as in the Master's room. Lucy was quite shocked at the change that a few hours had wrought in the Master's wife. She looked years older to-day, and her face had changed. All the cheerful brightness that had given an air of youthfulness to it into extreme old age was gone now. It was placid and resigned, but it was youthful and bright no longer.