Mrs. Van Alstine shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.
"I can't help thinking what father would say," she answered.
"What, that such a change of disposition was a forerunner of death? I believe that is the Scotch notion," said Mrs. Andrews. "What do you think of it, doctor?"
"I won't deny that I have seen something like that myself," remarked the doctor. "It isn't always so much a change, however, as that sickness brings out the real man or woman free from all disguise. I don't see anything like dying about our girl, however. The bone is uniting kindly, and all the other troubles are doing as well as we can expect. I dare say the confinement tells on her spirits. Do you think she may perhaps be under some religious depression?"
"I don't know," replied her mother. "She likes to hear the Bible read and to have her father or Henry pray with her, but she does not incline to talk much on the subject, and I don't like to drag her into it."
"No, that is never best. The older I grow, the more careful I feel about touching the religious experience of another with so much as my little finger. Sometimes, however, it happens that the patient would like very much to talk, but does not know how to begin, and such cases it is a comfort to have the ice broken. Well, you are the best judge, Mrs. Van Alstine, and I can safely leave her to you. Now let us see the rest of the hospital."
After all, it was to the doctor that Marion opened her heart at last. She was alone in her room. Mr. Van Alstine had sent for a reclining-chair of the newest and best construction for Marion, and she was half sitting, half lying in it before the window in her mother's room looking across the field to the beautiful wooded hills beyond.
This particular field was known as the colt-pasture. Owning some square miles of territory, Van Alstine Overbeck were not only tanners, but stock farmers on a great scale, and their horses were famous throughout the country. A dozen or more of the youthful four-legged aristocrats were amusing themselves with a private race round the great field.
It was one of the most beautiful of November Indian summer days. Frank had tempted his mother out for a drive, Mrs. Andrews had one of her rare but severe sick headaches, and Bram, who was Marion's most constant attendant, had been called out.
Marion was lying back in her chair watching the colts at their play. Her right arm was released from its bandage, but her wrists continued very lame, so that she was debarred the invalid's usual amusement of light fancy-work.