"Now who would ever have looked after Miss Grace if we hadn't?" she asked Elma.
Mrs. Dudgeon imagined she had other reasons for being so devoted to Miss Annie, and considered that Helen wasted her time in applying so much of it to a bedridden invalid.
"Whom do you see there?" she asked stonily.
"Principally Saunders," said Helen, whose good temper was unassailable. "Saunders is a duck."
The "duck," however, was a trifle worried with these changes, "not having been accustomed to sich for nigh on twenty-five years, mum," as he explained to Mrs. Leighton.
But the great boon lay in the restored health of Miss Grace. She came home shyly as ever, but with a fresh bloom on her face. What withered hopes that trip recalled to life, what memories of sacrificial days gone by, what fears laid past--who knows! She was very gentle with Miss Annie, and boasted of none of her late advantages as Jean did. Indeed, one might have thought that the events of the world had as usual taken place in Miss Annie's bedroom. But, with a courage born of new health and better spirits. Miss Grace called one day on Dr. Merryweather. In a graceful manner, as though the event had only occurred, she apologized to him for the slight offered by Miss Annie.
"I hope you know that you still have our supreme confidence," she said. "It was your kind interest which persuaded me to go to Buxton."
Dr. Merryweather seemed much affected. He shook her hand several times, but his voice remained gruff as she had always remembered and slightly feared it.
"You must be exceedingly careful of yourself, Miss Grace," he said bluntly, "Miss Annie has had too much of you."
Too much of her. Ah, well, she could never reproach herself for having spared an inch of her patience, an atom of her slender strength.