'No, wait a minute, mother; do I look so very badly? Please make the room darker; oh, I don't want to see him at all! I'm ashamed to see him, but I will. I must beg his pardon for all my wickedness, before I get worse, or he poisons me with his dreadful drugs; he hasn't had a patient yet, and he'll be glad of the chance to practise on me, I know; he will dose me with everything. And, mother, if George is coming in, please turn in Rover.'

Quietly laughing, my aunt came out and ushered me with due ceremony beyond the door, and shut it after her. In a darkened chamber, dim and dismal, before a lowly, slowly smouldering fire, in a great stuffed chair of state, sat poor little Dora, swathed in blankets, and muffled in shawls. Her tiny feet were wrapped in a woollen bundle, and rested on hot bricks, and her aching head was tied up in red flannel bandages that smelled of brandy; she had a mustard plaster on her chest, a cayenne pepper 'gargle' for her throat, and a cup of hot ginger tea stood at her elbow; her pretty nose was swollen out of shape, her bright eyes were red and inflamed, and little blisters had broken out all over those kissable lips; a very damp white handkerchief lay in her lap, and two great tears, that it had not yet wiped away, ran down her flushed cheeks. Poor child! she put up both her small hands when I came in, to hide her little red face; but I could see the 'salt pearls' that rolled between her slender fingers, and melted my heart at once. Sorry and ashamed, and afraid to speak, but more hopeful and happy than I had often felt, I went quietly, and stood behind her chair.

'George!' she said presently, in her poor little broken voice. 'Are you there?'

'Yes, Dora.'

'Are you very angry with me?'

I put one of my hands down over the chair-back, and drew both hers away from before her face, and then came round and kissed it; I could not think of anything better to do.

'Yon are not going away?'

I shook my head. 'That is not for me to say.'

'Who then? Will you please tell me what you mean, George?' She was very gentle and submissive, but the coaxing voice trembled painfully, and the burning hand I touched began to grow cold.

'It is for you to say, Dora, dear! Did you need to ask me that, after all these years?'