CHAPTER XIV.
CONVALESCENTS.
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven."
All's Well that Ends Well, Act I. sc. i.
During the months which had intervened since we last followed the fortunes of our friends at the Ranch, events had been moving forward most favourably.
Fellows had so far recovered that he was now able to resume work, and but for the scars of the burns received, which were still visible on face and hands, there was little outwardly to denote the terrible sufferings he had gone through.
The young woman who had suffered so severely in the fatal railway collision was just capable of getting about, but the doctor said it would yet be some time before she acquired the full use of her limbs.
To lighten the arduous duties of Mrs. Ranger, which the care and attention needed by the invalids had necessarily thrown upon her, the services of Russell's daughter, so opportunely rescued by Fellows, were called in, and proved a most invaluable aid.
Miss Russell, to whom Sir Walter Scott's descriptive line might well have been applied, "Sweet was her blue eye's modest smile," was a remarkably intelligent young woman, scarcely nineteen, who three years before, on the death of her mother, had emigrated with her father, and found employment at Farmer Ranger's Ranch. She was not regarded as a field-hand, but employed in domestic and home duties, which, properly attended to, were sufficient to occupy the major portion of her time, leaving little to be wasted in idleness.
A fresh hut or shanty had very speedily been raised upon the site of the one destroyed by the fire, and Russell had resumed his old habits.
The attention which her father's home required, and the duties she was called upon to discharge at the homestead, fully occupied all the hours of the day at her disposal, besides making frequent inroads upon those which should have been reserved for repose.