While she yet lay with her little, wan hands lying listlessly on the quilt, the gentle quiet of the sylvan scene stealing into her heart, too weak even to think, she heard a footstep beside her, a hand lightly arranging her pillows, and then a voice, one of the kindest Christie had ever heard, saying;
"How does thee feel to-day, my child?"
Christie lifted her eyes languidly, and saw a man bending over her. He might have been forty years of age; short, square, and ungainly in form, but with a chest and shoulders betokening vast, almost herculean strength. His hair was almost white, but dark streaks here and there showed what had been its original color; his face, with its irregular features, would have been positively ugly, had it not been for the expression of benevolence, of quiet goodness—the gentle, tender look it wore, that seemed shedding a very halo around it, and you forgot the brown skin, the rough, large features, the bushy eyebrows, and stony gray eyes in the almost womanly sweetness and softness of his smile. His dress was a long, drab coat, with blue homespun vest and trousers.
At any other time this unexpected apparition might have alarmed Christie, but that gentle voice reassured her; and she answered, faintly:
"Better, thank you."
"That is well. Thee feels weak, does thee not?"
"Oh, yes—so weak," she said, closing her eyes.
"Well, I expected as much. Thee has been very, very ill," said the man, adjusting a pillow, and shading the light, with the skillful hand of a practiced nurse.
A thousand questions were rising to Christie's lips, but she was too utterly prostrated to give them voice. She fixed her eyes wistfully on the man's face with a questioning gaze that brought him once more to her side.
"Well, my daughter, what does thee now want?"