its green; the livid cholera-tint had vanished from the face of nature: the hills rose clear round the horizon, absolved from that pale malaria-haze.

Caroline’s youth could now be of some avail to her, and so could her mother’s nurture: both—crowned by God’s blessing, sent in the pure west wind blowing soft as fresh through the ever-open chamber lattice—rekindled her long-languishing energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it was permitted to hope—a genuine material convalescence had commenced. It was not merely Caroline’s smile which was brighter, or her spirits which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and eye—a look dread and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed colour to return, a more subtle change took place: all grew softer and warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl—not a mere white mould, or rigid piece of statuary.

Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The words ‘I am so thirsty’ ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes, when she had swallowed a morsel, she would say it had revived her. All descriptions of food were no longer equally distasteful: she could be induced sometimes to indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and anxious care did not her nurse prepare what was selected! How she watched her as she partook of it!

Nourishment brought strength. She could sit up. Then she longed to breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had ripened. Her uncle, always liberal, had bought a garden-chair for her express use. He carried her down in his own arms, and placed her in it himself, and William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her directions for further work.

William and she found plenty to talk about; they had a dozen topics in common, interesting to them, unimportant to the rest of the world. They took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects and plants; they held similar doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The nest and proceedings of some ground-bees, which had burrowed in the turf under an old cherry-tree, were one subject of interest, the haunts of certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and callow fledglings, another.

Had Chamber’s Journal existed in those days, it would certainly have formed Miss Helstone’s and Farren’s favourite periodical. She would have subscribed for it, and to him each number would duly have been lent. Both would have put implicit faith, and found great savour, in its marvellous anecdotes of animal sagacity.

This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have no other hand than William’s to guide her chair, and why his society and conversation sufficed to give interest to her garden airings.

Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter could be so much at ease with a ‘man of the people.’ She found it impossible to speak to him otherwise than stiffly. She felt as if a great gulf lay between her caste and his, and that to cross it, or meet him half-way, would be to degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline:

‘Are you not afraid, my dear, to converse with that person so unreservedly? He may presume, and become troublesomely garrulous.’

‘William presume, mamma? You don’t know him. He never presumes: he is altogether too proud and sensitive to do so. William has very fine feelings.’

And Mrs. Pryor smiled sceptically at the naïve notion of that rough-handed, rough-headed, fustian-clad clown having ‘fine feelings.’