“Doing quite well, they tell me; she is going to bed; I hope she will sleep well, and be all right to-morrow.” He ventured to sit down as he spoke.
“Oh, I am so glad! dear Hilary—it was horrid, dreadful—I can not get the idea out of my head; oh, Mr. Duncan! if they had not been there to save her!” Dora shuddered again, and again tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Do not agitate yourself so,” exclaimed her companion,
“do not think of it; can I do nothing for you; get you nothing?”
“No, thank you! I shall be better presently.” She sobbed a little, and then was quiet.
“And your head-ache? Miss Barham told me it was bad.”
“I believe it was my heart, more than my head, Mr. Duncan,” replied Dora, with a smile. “I can not bear things as Isabel does, and I was so frightened; and people seemed so thoughtless and indifferent, and so ready to forget—so little thankful. Oh, dear! what a set I live with; it made my heart full, and my head ache; so at last I crept away here, to be happy and grateful my own way.”
He looked at her with a smile, half-admiring, half arch, but said—
“I had no idea I found you in a state of happiness.”
She crimsoned, laughed, and then said—