"How long have you lived with him?"
"More than a year."
"Was he a preacher once?"
"Yes."
"When did he leave off being a preacher?"
"Soon after he took care of me."
"Is that his child?"
"Sir," said Annette, coloring indignantly, "I am a widow."
The doctor, she thought, looked at her oddly, but he asked no more questions.
When the sick man was getting better, and able to enjoy invalid's food, he observed one day, while he was taking some broth, that Annette was looking at him; he paused to look at her in return, and was struck with a new expression in her face, quite distinct from the merely passive sweetness which usually characterized it. She laid her little hand on his, which was now transparently thin, and said, "I am getting very wise; I have sold some of the books to make money—the doctor told me where; and I have looked into the shops where they sell caps and bonnets and pretty things, and I can do all that, and get more money to keep us. And when you are well enough to get up, we will go out and be married—shall we not? See! and la petite" (the baby had never been named anything else) "shall call you Papa—and then we shall never part."