"I'm glad of that," said Vesta, "because you will then be satisfied with Princess Anne. They say your uncle will be sick here several weeks, and we can help each other to make him well. Now he is waking."
Milburn opened his eyes and sighed, and saw them together, and Rhoda held back considerately while the young wife approached the bed. He looked at her with a bewildered doubt.
"I thought they said you had gone forever," he murmured.
"No, I am come forever, or until you wish me gone."
"I told them so," he sighed; "I said, 'She has high principle, though she can't love me.'"
"Uncle Meshach, give Auntie time!" cried Rhoda, with a quick divination of something unsettled or misunderstood. "Don't you know your Rhudy? Even I was afraid of you till I was tuke sick and you thought it was the pilmonary and nursed me."
"You have a good niece," Vesta said, as her husband kissed the stranger; "and we shall love each other, I hope, and improve each other."
"Yes, that will be noble," he replied. "Teach her something; I have never had the time. Oh, I am very ill; at a time like this, too!"
"Be composed, Mr. Milburn," the bride said; "it is only Nature taking the time you would not give her, and which she means for us to improve our almost violent acquaintance. I shall be very happy sitting here, and wish you would let your niece be with me; I desire it."
He tried to smile, though the strong sweat succeeding the fever broke upon him from his hands to his face.