The doctors, though, were very anxious for his mind, still wandering. If his body returned to life, they feared that his mind would not. But the Bowdoins and little Sarah sat and watched there.
It came that morning,—it was late in May; so calmly that for some moments they did not notice it,—old Mr. Bowdoin and the little girl.
Jamie opened his eyes to look out on this world again so naturally that they did not see that he had waked; only he lay there, looking out of the window, and puzzling at a blossom that was on a tree below; for he remembered, when he had gone to sleep the night before, it was March weather, and the snow lay on the ground. The snow lay thick upon the ground as he was walking to the station. How could spring have come in a night? Where was—What world was this?
For his eyes traveled down the room to where, sitting at the foot of his bed to be the first to be seen by him, Jamie saw his little girl as he remembered her.
Mr. Bowdoin started as the look of seeing came back to Jamie's eyes. But the little girl, as she had been told to do, ran forward and took the old clerk's hand.
It was very quiet in the room. Old Mr. Bowdoin dared not speak; he sat there rubbing his spectacles.
But old Jamie had looked up to her, and said only, "Mercedes!"
XVI.
Jamie did come back to the bank—once. It was on a day some weeks after this, when he was well. He had been well enough even for one more journey to New York; the Bowdoins did not thwart him. And Mercedes—Sadie—was at his home; so now he came to get possession of his ward's little fortune, to be duly invested in his name as trustee, in the stock of the Old Colony Bank. He came in one morning, and all the bookkeepers greeted him; and then he went into the safe, where he found the box as usual; for Mr. Bowdoin, knowing that he would come, had taken it back.