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I was so young and healthy that I soon recovered from the shock, and in a few days I had regained strength and color. Mr. Lucas had gone to see mother, and the day after his visit she wrote a fond incoherent letter, full of praises of my supposed heroism. Allan, to whom I had narrated everything fully, wrote more quietly, but the underlying tenderness breathed in every word for Dot and me touched me greatly. Dot had not suffered much; he was a little more lame, and his back ached more constantly. But it was Flurry who came off worst; her cold was on her chest, and when she threw it off she had a bad cough, and began to grow pale and thin; she was nervous, too, and woke every night calling out to me or Dot, and before many days were over Miss Ruth wrote to her brother and told him that Flurry would be better at home.
We were waiting for his answer, when Miss Ruth brought a letter to my bedside from mother, and sat down, as usual, to hear the contents, for I used to read her little bits from my home correspondence, and she wanted to know what Uncle Geoffrey thought about Flurry. My sudden exclamation frightened her.
"What is wrong, Esther? It is nothing about Giles?"
"Oh, no!" I returned, the tears starting to my eyes, "but I must go home at once; Carrie is very ill, they are afraid it is an attack of rheumatic fever. Mother writes in such distress, and there is a message from Uncle Geoffrey, asking me to pack up and come to them without delay. There is something about Flurry, too; perhaps you had better read it."
"I will take the letter away with me. Don't hurry too much, Esther; we will talk it over at breakfast, and there is no train now before eleven, and nurse will help you to pack."
That was just like Miss Ruth—no fuss, no unnecessary words, no adding to my trouble by selfish regrets at my absence. She was like a man in that, she never troubled herself about petty details, as most women do, but just looked straight at the point in question.
Her calmness reassured me, and by breakfast-time I was able to discuss matters quietly.
"I have sent nurse to your room, Esther," she said, as she poured out the coffee; "the children have had their bread and milk, and have gone out to play; it is so warm and sunny, it will not hurt Flurry. The pony carriage will be round here at half-past ten, so you will have plenty of time, and I mean to drive you to the station myself."
"You think of everything," I returned, gratefully. "Have you read the letter? Does it strike you that Carrie is so very ill?"
"I am afraid so," she admitted, reluctantly; "your mother says she has been ailing some time, only she would not take care of herself, and then she got wet, and took her class in her damp things. I am afraid you have a long spell of nursing before you; rheumatic fever sometimes lasts a long time. Your uncle says something about a touch of pleurisy as well."
I pushed away my plate, for I could not eat. I am ashamed to say a strong feeling of indignation took possession of me.
"She would not give up," I burst out, angrily: "she would not come here to recruit herself, although she owned she felt ill; she has just gone on until her strength was exhausted and she was not in a state for anything, and now all this trouble and anxiety must come on mother, and she is not fit for it."
"Hush, Esther; you must not feel like this," she returned, gently. "Poor Carrie will purchase wisdom dearly; depend upon it, the knowledge that she has brought on this illness through her own self-will will be the sharpest pang of all. You must go home and be a comfort to them all, as you have been our comfort," she added, sweetly; "and, Esther, I have been thinking over things, and you must trust Dot to me. We shall all return to the Cedars, most likely to-morrow, and I will promise not to let him out of my sight."
And as I regarded her dubiously, she went on still more eagerly:
"You must let me keep him, Esther. Flurry is so poorly, and she will fret over the loss of her little companion; and with such a serious illness in the house, he would only be an additional care to you." And as she seemed so much in earnest, I consented reluctantly to wait for mother's decision; for, after all, the child would be dull and neglected, with Jack at school, and mother and me shut up in Carrie's sick room. So in that, as in all else, Miss Ruth was right.
Dot cried a little when I said good-by to him; he did not like seeing me go away, and the notion of Carrie's illness distressed him, and Flurry cried, too, because he did, and then Miss Ruth laughed at them both.
"You silly children," she said, "when we are all going home to-morrow, and you can walk over and see Esther every day, and take her flowers and nice things for Carrie." Which view of the case cheered them immensely, and we left them with their heads very close together, evidently planning all sorts of surprises for Carrie and me.
Miss Ruth talked very cheerfully up to the last moment, and then she grew a little silent and tearful.
"I shall miss you so, Esther, both here and at the Cedars," she said tenderly. "I feel it may be a long time before you come to us again; but there, I mean to see plenty of you," she went on, recovering herself. "I shall bring Dot every day, if it be only for a few minutes!" And so she sent me away half comforted.
It was a dreary journey, and I was thankful when it was over; there was no one to meet me at the station, so I took one of the huge lumbering flies, and a sleepy old horse dragged me reluctantly up the steep Milnthorpe streets.
It was an odd coincidence, but as we passed the bank and I looked out of the window half absently, Mr. Lucas came down the steps and saw me, and motioned to the driver to stop.
"I am very sorry to see you here," he said, gravely. "I met Dr. Cameron just now, and he told me your mother had written to recall you."
"Did he say how Carrie was?" I interrupted anxiously.
"She is no better, and in a state of great suffering; it seems she has been imprudent, and taken a severe chill; but don't let me keep you, if you are anxious to go on." But I detained him a moment.
"Flurry seems better this morning," I observed; "her cough is less hard."
He looked relieved at that.
"I have written for them to come home to-morrow, and to bring Dot, too; we will take care of him for you, and make him happy among us, and you will have enough on your hands."
And then he drew back, and went slowly down High street, but the encounter had cheered me; I was beginning to look on Mr. Lucas as an old friend.
Uncle Geoffrey was on the door-step as I drove up, and we entered the house together.
"This is a bad business, I am afraid," he said, in a subdued voice, as he closed the parlor door; "it goes to one's heart to see that pretty creature suffer. I am glad, for all our sakes, that Allan will be here next week." And then I remembered all at once that the year was out, and that Allan was coming home to live; but he had said so little about it in his last letters that I was afraid of some postponement.
"He is really coming, then?" I exclaimed, in joyful surprise; this was good news.
"Yes, next Thursday; and I shall be glad of the boy's help," he replied, gruffly; and then he sat down and told me about Carrie.
Foolish girl, her zeal had indeed bordered upon madness. It seems Uncle Geoffrey had taxed her with illness a fortnight ago, and she had not denied it; she had even consented to take the remedies prescribed her in the way of medicine, but nothing would induce her to rest. The illness had culminated last Sunday; she had been caught in a heavy rain, and her thin summer walking dress had been drenched, and yet she had spent the afternoon as usual at the schools. A shivering fit that evening had been the result.
"She has gradually got worse and worse," continued Uncle Geoffrey; "it is not ordinary rheumatic fever; there is certainly sciatica, and a touch of pleurisy; the chill on her enfeebled, worn-out frame has been deadly, and there is no knowing the mischief that may follow. I would not have you told before this, for after a nasty accident like yours, a person is not fit for much. Let me look at you, child. I must own you don't stem much amiss. Now listen to me, Esther. I have elected Deborah head-nurse, and you must work under her orders. Bless me," catching a glimpse of a crimson disappointed face, for I certainly felt crestfallen at this, "a chit like you cannot be expected to know everything. Deb is a splendid nurse; she has a head on her shoulders, that woman," with a little chuckle; "she has just put your mother out of the room, because she says that she is no more use than a baby, so you will have to wheedle yourself into her good graces if you expect to nurse Carrie."
"Why did you send for me, if you expect me to be of no use?" I returned, with decided temper, for this remark chafed me; but he only chuckled again.
"Deborah sent for you, not I," he said, in an amused voice. "'Couldn't we have Miss Esther home?' she asked; 'she has her wits about her,' which I am afraid was a hit at somebody."
This soothed me down a little, for my dignity was sadly affronted that Deborah should be mistress of the sick room. I am afraid after all that I was not different from other girls, and had not yet outgrown what mother called the "porcupine stage" of girlhood, when one bristles all over at every supposed slight, armed at every point with minor prejudices, like "quills upon the fretful porcupine."
Uncle Geoffrey bade me run along, for he was busy, so I went upstairs swallowing discontent with every step, until I looked up and saw mother's pale sad face watching me from a doorway, and then every unworthy feeling vanished.
"Oh, my darling, thank Heaven I have you again!" she murmured, folding me in her loving arms; "my dear child, who has never given me a moment's anxiety." And then I knew how heavily Carrie's willfulness had weighed on that patient heart.
She drew me half weeping into Carrie's little room, and we sat down together hand in hand. The invalid had been moved into mother's room, as it was large and sunny, and I could hear Deborah moving quietly as I passed the door.
Mother would not speak about Carrie at first; she asked after Dot, and was full of gratitude to Miss Ruth for taking care of him; and then the dear soul cried over me, and said she had nearly lost us both, and that but for me her darling boy would have been drowned. Mr. Lucas had told her so.
"He was full of your praises, Esther," she went on, drying her eyes; "he says he and Miss Ruth will be your fast friends through life; that there is nothing he would not do to show his gratitude; it made me so proud to hear it."
"It makes me proud, too, mother; but I cannot have you talking about me, when I am longing to hear about Carrie."
Mother sighed and shook her head, and then it was I noticed a tremulous movement about her head, and, oh! how gray her hair was, almost white under her widow's cap.
"There is not much to say," she said, despondently; "your uncle will not tell me if she be in actual danger, but he looks graver every day. Her sufferings are terrible; just now Deborah would not let me remain, because I fretted so, as though a mother can help grieving over her child's agony. It is all her own fault, Esther, and that makes it all the harder to bear."
I acquiesced silently, and then I told mother that I had come home to spare her, and do all I could for Carrie—as much as Deborah would allow.
"You must be very prudent, then," she replied, "for Deborah is very jealous, and yet so devoted, that one cannot find fault with her. Perhaps she is right, and I am too weak to be of much use, but I should like you to be with your sister as much as possible."
I promised to be cautious, and after a little more talk with mother
I laid aside my traveling things and stole gently into the sick room.
Deborah met me on the threshold with uplifted finger and a resolute "Hush!" on her lips. She looked more erect and angular than ever, and there was a stern forbidding expression on her face; but I would not be daunted.
I caught her by both her hands, and drew her, against her will, to the door.
"I want to speak to you," I whispered; and when I had her outside, I looked straight into her eyes. "Oh, Deb," I cried, "is it not dreadful for all of us? and I have been in such peril, too. What should we do without you, when you know all about nursing, and understand a sick room so well? You are everything to us, Deborah, and we are so grateful, and now you must let me help you a little, and spare you fatigue. I daresay there are many little things you could find for me to do."
I do not know about the innocence of the dove, but certainly the wisdom of the serpent was in my speech; my humility made Deborah throw down her arms at once. "Any little thing that I can do," I pleaded, and her face relaxed and her hard gray eyes softened.
"You are always ready to help a body, Miss Esther, I will say that, and I don't deny that I am nearly ready to drop with fatigue through not having my clothes off these three nights. The mistress is no more help than a baby, not being able to lift, or to leave off crying."
"And you will let me help you?" I returned, eagerly, a little too eagerly, for she drew herself up.
"I won't make any promises, Miss Esther," she said, rather stiffly; "the master said I must have help, and I am willing to try what you can do, though you are young and not used to the ways of a sick room," finished the provoking creature; but I restrained my impatience.
"Any little thing that I can do," I repeated, humbly; and my forbearance had its reward, for Deborah drew aside to let me pass into the room, only telling me, rather sharply, to say as little possible and keep my thoughts to myself. Deborah's robust treatment was certainly bracing, and it gave me a sort of desperate courage; but the first shock of seeing Carrie was dreadful.
The poor girl lay swathed in bandages, and as I entered the room her piteous moanings almost broke my heart. Burning with fever, and racked by pain, she could find no ease or rest.
As I kissed her she shuddered, and her eyes looked at me with a terrible sadness in them.
"Oh, my poor dear, how sorry I am!" I whispered. I dared not say more with Deborah hovering jealously in the back-ground.
"Don't be sorry," she groaned; "I deserved it. I deserve it all." And then she turned away her face, and her fair hair shaded it from me. Did I hear it aright; and was it a whispered prayer for patience that caught my ear as she turned away.
Deborah would not let me stay long. She sent me down to have tea and talk to mother, but she promised that I should come up again by-and-by. I was surprised as I opened the parlor door to find Mr. Lucas talking to Uncle Geoffrey and mother with Jack looking up at him with awe-struck eyes. He came forward with an amused smile, as he noticed my astonished pause.
"You did not expect to see me here," he said, in his most friendly manner; "but I wanted to inquire after your sister. Mrs. Cameron has been so good as to promise me a cup of tea, so you must make it."
That Mr. Lucas should be drinking tea at mother's table! somehow, I could not get over my surprise. I had never seen him in our house before, and yet in the old times both he and his wife had been frequent visitors. Certainly he seemed quite at home.
Mother had lighted her pretty china lamp, and Uncle Geoffrey had thrown a log of wood on the fire, and the parlors looked bright and cozy, and even Jack's hair was brushed and her collar for once not awry. I suppose Mr. Lucas found it pleasant, for he stayed quite late, and I wondered how he could keep his dinner waiting so long; but then Uncle Geoffrey was such a clever man, and could talk so well. I thought I should have to leave them at last, for it was nearly the time that Deborah wanted me; but just then Mr. Lucas looked across at me and noticed something in my face.
"You want to be with your sister," he said, suddenly interpreting my thoughts, "and I am reducing my cook to despair. Good-by, Mrs. Cameron. Many thanks for a pleasant hour." And then he shook hands with us all, and left the room with Uncle Geoffrey.
"What an agreeable, well-bred man," observed mother. "I like him exceedingly, and yet people call him proud and reserved."
"He is not a bit," I returned, indignantly; and then I kissed mother, and ran upstairs.
For many, many long weeks, I might say months, my daily life was lived in Carrie's sick room.
What a mercy it is that we are not permitted to see the course of events—that we take moment by moment from the Father's hand, not knowing what lies before us!
It was September when I had that little altercation with Deborah on the threshold, and when she drew aside for me to pass into that dimly-lighted sickroom; it was Christmas now, and I was there still. Could I have foreseen those months, with their record of suffering, their hours of changeless monotony, well might my courage have failed. As it was, I watched the slow progression of nights and days almost indifferently; the walls of the sickroom closed round me, shutting me out from the actual world, and concentrating my thoughts on the frail girl who was fighting against disease and death.
So terrible an illness I pray to Heaven I may never see again; sad complications producing unheard-of tortures, and bringing the sufferer again and again to the very brink of death.
"If I could only die: if I were only good enough to be allowed to die!" that was the prayer she breathed; and there were times when I could have echoed it, when I would rather have parted with her, dearly as I loved her, than have seen her so racked with agony; but it was not to be. The lesson was not completed. There are some who must be taught to live, who have to take back "the turned lesson," as one has beautifully said, and learn it more perfectly.
If I had ever doubted her goodness in my secret soul, I could doubt no longer, when I daily witnessed her weakness and her exceeding patience. She bore her suffering almost without complaint, and would often hide from us how much she had to endure.
"'It is good to be still.' Do you remember that, Esther?" she said once; and I knew she was quoting the words of one who had suffered.
After the first day I had no further difficulty with Deborah; she soon recognized my usefulness, and gave me my share of nursing without grudging. I took my turn at the night-watching, and served my first painful apprenticeship in sick nursing. Mother could do little for us; she could only relieve me for a couple of hours in the afternoon, during which Uncle Geoffrey insisted that I should have rest and exercise.
Allan did not come home when we expected him; he had to postpone his intention for a couple of months. This was a sad disappointment, as he would have helped us so much, and mother's constant anxiety that my health should not suffer by my close confinement was a little trying at times. I was quite well, but it was no wonder that my fresh color faded a little, and that I grew a little quiet and subdued. The absence of life and change must be pernicious to young people; they want air, movement, a certain stirring of activity and bustle to keep time with their warm natures.
Every one was very kind to me. Uncle Geoffrey would take me on his rounds, and often Miss Ruth and Flurry would call for me, and drive me into the country, and they brought me books and fruit and lovely flowers for Carrie's room; and though I never saw Mr. Lucas during his few brief visits he never failed to send me a kind message or to ask if there was anything he could do for us.
Miss Ruth, or Ruth, as I always called her now, would sometimes come up into the sickroom and sit for a few minutes. Carrie liked to see her, and always greeted her with a smile; but when Mrs. Smedley heard of it, and rather peremptorily demanded admittance, she turned very pale, and calling me to her, charged me, in an agitated voice, never to let her in. "I could not see her, I could not," she went on, excitedly. "I like Miss Ruth; she is so gentle and quiet. But I want no one but you and mother."
Mother once—very injudiciously, as Uncle Geoffrey and I thought —tried to shake this resolution of Carrie's.
"Poor Mrs. Smedley seems so very grieved and disappointed that you will not see her, my dear. This is the third time she has called this week, and she has been so kind to you."
"Oh, mother, don't make me see her!" pleaded Carrie, even her lips turning white; and of course mother kissed her and promised that she should not be troubled. But when she had left the room Carrie became very much agitated.
"She is the last I ought to see, for she helped to bring me to this; she taught me to disobey my mother—yes, Esther, she did indeed!" as I expostulated in a shocked manner. "She was always telling me that my standard was not high enough—that I ought to look above even the wisest earthly parents. She said my mother had old-fashioned notions of duty; that things were different in her young days; that, in spite of her goodness, she had narrow views; that it was impossible for her even to comprehend me."
"Dear Carrie, surely you could not have agreed with her?" I asked, gently; but her only answer was a sigh as she sank back upon her pillows.
It was the evening Allan was expected, I remember. It was December now, and for nine weeks I had been shut up in that room, with the exception of my daily walk or drive.
Deborah had gone back to her usual work; it was impossible to spare her longer. But she still helped in the heaviest part of the nursing, and came from time to time to look after us both.
Dot had remained for six weeks at the Cedars; but mother missed him so much that Uncle Geoffrey decided to bring him home; and how glad and thankful I was to get my darling back!
I saw very little of him, however, for, strange to say, Carrie did not care for him and Jack to stay long in the room. I was not surprised that Jack fidgeted her, for she was restless and noisy, and her loud voice and awkward manners would jar sadly on an invalid; but Dot was different.
In a sick room he was as quiet as a little mouse, and he had such nice ways. It grieved me to see Carrie shade her eyes in that pained manner when he hobbled in softly on his crutches.
"Carrie always cries when she sees me!" Dot said once, with a little quiver of his lips. Alas! we neither of us understood the strange misery that even the sight of her afflicted little brother caused her.
Mother had gone downstairs when she had made her little protest about Mrs. Smedley, and we were left alone together. I was resting in the low cushioned chair Ruth had sent me in the early days of Carrie's illness, and was watching the fire in a quiet fashion that had become habitual to me. The room looked snug and pleasant in the twilight; the little bed on which I slept was in the farthest corner; a bouquet of hothouse flowers stood on the little round table, with some books Mr. Lucas had sent up for me. It must have looked cheerful to Carrie as she lay among the pillows; but to my dismay there were tears on her cheeks—I could see them glistening in the firelight.
"Do you feel less well to-night, dear?" I asked, anxiously, as I took a seat beside her; but she shook her head.
"I am better, much better," was her reply, "thanks to you and Deborah and Uncle Geoffrey," but her smile was very sad as she spoke. "How good you have been to me, Esther—how kind and patient! Sometimes I have looked at you when you were asleep over there, and I have cried to see how thin and weary you looked in your sleep, and all through me."
"Nonsense," I returned, kissing her; but my voice was not quite clear.
"Allan will say so to-night when he sees you—you are not the same, Esther. Your eyes are graver, and you seem to have forgotten how to laugh, and it is all my fault."
"Dear Carrie, I wish you would not talk so."
"Let me talk a little to-night," she pleaded. "I feel better and stronger, and it will be such a relief to tell you some of my thoughts. I have been silent for nine weeks, and sometimes the pent-up pain has been more than I could bear."
"My poor Carrie," stroking the thin white hand on the coverlid.
"Yes, I am that," she sighed. "Do you remember our old talks together? Oh, how wise you were, Esther, but I would not listen to you; you were all for present duties. I can recollect some of your words now. You told me our work lay before us, close to us, at our very feet, and yet I would stretch out my arms for more, till my own burdens crushed me, and I fell beneath them."
"You attempted too much," I returned; "your intention was good, but you overstrained your powers."
"You are putting it too mildly," she returned, with a great sadness in her voice. "Esther, I have had time to think since I have lain here, and I have been reviewing your life and mine. I wanted to see where the fault lay, and how I had missed my path. God was taking away my work from me; the sacrifice I offered was not acceptable."
"Oh, my dear, hush!" But she lifted her hand feebly and laid on my lips.
"It was weeks before I found it out, but I think I see it clearly now. We were both in earnest about our duty, we both wanted to do the best we could for others; but, Esther, after all it was you who were right; you did not turn against the work that was brought to you— your teaching, and house, and mother, and Dot, and even Jack—all that came first, and you knew it; you have worked in the corner of the vineyard that was appointed to you, and never murmured over its barrenness and narrow space, and so you are ripe and ready for any great work that may be waiting for you in the future. 'Faithful in little, faithful in much'—how often have I applied those words to you!"
I tried to stem the torrent of retrospection, but nothing would silence her; as she said herself, the pent up feelings must have their course. But why did she judge herself so bitterly? It pained me inexpressibly to hear her.
"If I had only listened to you!" she went on; "but my spiritual self-will blinded me. I despised my work. Oh, Esther! you cannot contradict me; you know how bitterly I spoke of the little Thornes; how I refused to take them into my heart; how scornfully I spoke of my ornamental brickmaking."
I could not gainsay her words on that point; I knew her to be wrong.
"I wanted to choose my work; that was the fatal error. I spurned the little duties at my feet, and looked out for some great work that I must do. Teaching the little Thornes was hateful to me; yet I could teach ragged children in the Sunday-school for hours. Mending Jack's things and talking to mother were wearisome details; yet I could toil through fog and rain in Nightingale lane, and feel no fatigue. My work was impure, my motives tainted by self-will. Could it be accepted by Him who was subject to His parents for thirty years, who worked at the carpenter's bench, when He could have preached to thousands?" And here she broke down, and wept bitterly.
What could I answer? How could I apply comfort to one so sorely wounded? And yet through it all who could doubt her goodness?
"Dear Carrie," I whispered, "if this be all true, if there be no exaggeration, no morbid conscientiousness in all you say, still you have repented, and your punishment has been severe."
"My punishment!" she returned, in a voice almost of despair. "Why do you speak of it as past, when you know I shall bear the consequences of my own imprudence all my life long? This is what is secretly fretting me. I try to bow myself to His will; but, oh! it is so hard not to be allowed to make amends, not to be allowed to have a chance of doing better for the future, not to be allowed to make up for all my deficiencies in the past; but just to suffer and be a burden."
I looked at her with frightened eyes. What could she mean, when she was getting better every day, and Uncle Geoffrey hoped she might be downstairs by Christmas Day?
"Is it possible you do not know, Esther?" she said incredulously; but two red spots came into her thin cheeks. "Have not mother and Uncle Geoffrey told you?"
"They have told me nothing," I repeated. "Oh, Carrie, what do you mean? You are not going to die?"
"To die? Oh, no!" in a tone of unutterable regret. "Should I be so sorry for myself if I thought that? I am getting well—well," with a slight catching of her breath—"but when I come downstairs I shall be like Dot."
I do not know what I said in answer to this terrible revelation. Uncle Geoffrey had never told me; Carrie had only extorted the truth from him with difficulty. My darling girl a cripple! It was Carrie who tried to comfort me as I knelt sobbing beside her.
"Oh, Esther, how you cry! Don't, my dear, don't. It makes me still more unhappy. Have I told you too suddenly? But you must know. That is why I could not bear to see Dot come into the room. But I mean to get over my foolishness."
But I attempted no answer. "Cruel, cruel!" were the only words that forced themselves through my teeth.
"You shall not say that," she returned, stroking my hair. "How can it be cruel if it be meant for my good? I have feared this all along, Esther; the mischief has set in in one hip. It is not the suffering, but the thought of my helplessness that frightens me." And here her sweet eyes filled with tears.
Oh, how selfish I was, when I ought to have been comforting her, if only the words would come! And then a sudden thought came to me.
"They also serve who only stand and wait," and I repeated the line softly, and a sort of inspiration came over me.
"Carrie," I said, embracing her, "this must be the work the loving Saviour has now for you to do. This is the Cross He would have you take up, and He who died to save the sinful and unthankful will give you grace sufficient to your need."
"Yes, I begin to think it is!" she returned; and a light came into her eyes, and she lay back in a satisfied manner. "I never thought of it in that way; it seemed my punishment—just taking away my work and leaving me nothing but helplessness and emptiness."
"And now you will look at it as still more difficult work. Oh, Carrie, what will mine be compared to that—to see you patient under suffering, cheerfully enduring, not murmuring or repining? What will that be but preaching to us daily?"
"That will do," she answered faintly; "I must think it out. You have done more for me this afternoon than any one has." And seeing how exhausted she was, I left her, and stole back to my place.
She slept presently, and I sat still in the glimmering firelight, listening to the sounds downstairs that told of Allan's arrival; but I could not go down and show my tear-stained face. Deborah came up presently to lay the little tea-table, and then Carrie woke up, and I waited on her as usual, and tried to coax her failing appetite; and by-and-by came the expected tap at the door.
Of course it was Allan; no one but himself would come in with that alert step and cheerful voice.
"Well, Carrie, my dear," he said, affectionately, bending over her as she looked up at him—whatever he felt at the sight of her changed face he kept to himself; he kissed me without a word and took his seat by the bedside.
"You know, Allan?" she whispered, as he took her hand.
"Yes, I know; Uncle Geoffrey has told me; but it may not be as bad as you think—you have much for which to be thankful; for weeks he never thought you would get over it. What does it matter about the lameness, Carrie, when you have come back to us from the very jaws of death?" and his voice trembled a little.
"I felt badly about it until Esther talked to me," she returned.
"Esther has been such a nurse to me, Allan."
He looked at me as she said this, and his eyes glistened. "Esther is
Esther," he replied, laconically; but I knew then how I satisfied him.
"When we were alone together that night—for I waited downstairs to say good-night to him, while Deborah stayed with Carrie—he suddenly drew me toward him and looked in my face.
"Poor child," he said, tenderly, "it is time I came home to relieve you; you have grown a visionary, unsubstantial Esther, with large eyes and a thin face; but somehow I never liked the look of you so well."
That made me smile. "Oh, Allan, how nice it is to have you with me again!"
"Nice! I should think so; what walks we will have, by the bye. I mean to have Carrie downstairs before a week is over; what is the good of you both moping upstairs? I shall alter all that."
"She is too weak too move," I returned, dubiously.
"But she is not too weak to be carried. You are keeping her too quiet, and she wants rousing a little; she feeds too much on her own thoughts, and it is bad for her; she is such a little saint, you know," continued Allan, half jestingly, "she wants to be leavened a little with our wickedness.
"She is good; you would say so if you heard her."
"Not a bit more good than some other people—Miss Ruth, for example;" but I could see from his mischievous eyes that he was not thinking of Ruth. How well and handsome he was looking: he had grown broader, and there was an air of manliness about him—"my bonnie lad," as I called him.
I went to bed that night with greater contentment in my heart, because Allan had come home; and even Carrie seemed cheered by the hopeful view he had taken of her case.
"He thinks, perhaps, that after some years I may not be quite so helpless," she whispered, as I said good-night to her, and her face looked composed and quiet in the fading firelight; "anyhow, I mean to bear it as well as I can, and not give you more trouble."
"I do not think it a trouble," was my answer as her arms released me; and as I lay awake watching the gleaming shadows in the room, I thought how sweet such ministry is to those we love, their very helplessness endearing them to us. After all, this illness had drawn us closer together, we were more now as sisters should be, united in sympathy and growing deeper into each other's hearts. "How pleasant it is to live in unity!" said the Psalmist; and the echo of the words seemed to linger in my mind until I fell asleep.