"Papa! papa!" she cried, "I will work for you; I will be your servant; I will love you and love you to all eternity. I won't leave you. I won't indeed. What does it matter for the money!"
At this moment the doctor entered.
"Ah!" he said, "this won't do at all. I thought you would have made a better nurse, Miss Adela. There you are, both crying together!"
"Indeed, Mr. Henry," said Adela, rather comically, "it's not my fault.
He would cry."
And as she spoke she wiped away her own tears.
"But he's looking much better, after all," said Harry. "Allow me to feel your pulse."
The patient was pronounced much better; fresh orders were given; and
Harry took his leave.
But Adela felt vexed. She did not consider that he knew nothing of what had passed between her father and her. To the warm fire-side of her knowledge, he came in wintry and cold. Of course it would never do for the doctor to aggravate his patient's symptoms by making love to his daughter; but ought he not to have seen that it was all right between them now?—How often we feel and act as if our mood were the atmosphere of the world! It may be a cold frost within us, when our friend is in the glow of a summer sunset: and we call him unsympathetic and unfeeling. If we let him know the state of our world, we should see the rosehues fade from his, and our friend put off his singing robes, and sit down with us in sackcloth and ashes, to share our temptation and grief.
"You see I cannot offer you to him now, Adela," said her father.
"No, papa."