"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a holiday, after all."

Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing loth.

"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you will stay with me at the hospital—the Corn Exchange I mean—and save me from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"

It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, over-ruled by her husband.

There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks of herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?"

It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice.

Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the drawing-room, in order to introduce her to his wife, who had come a stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful (noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass.

A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of the fever.

"What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, who had brought the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her.

"He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes to me."

"Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie quite illogically.

"Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has just been calling on father, who is delighted with him—so is mother; and, for my part," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used to be—just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend why you have such a dislike to him."

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and go back to St. Ebbe's at once."

"But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to his house."

"Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity.

"Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily rebuffed, and she was so reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; it is the case of the moth and the candle."

"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever."

"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy."

"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. "I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am always affronted when I remember how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my heart to be very sorry for him."

"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment."

"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much perplexity.

"'Though you should choose to dissemble your love, Why need you kick me down-stairs?"

quoted Rose. "Oh! but the poet did not know the world, or pretended not to know it. I assure you there are many wise men who would much rather be kicked in this way than be civilly spoken to. Kate Ironside thought fit to confide to me how much interested she was in a suit which, if it ever succeeded, would make us all brothers and sisters. She was so good as to add that while she was aware Harry always knew best, and she had entire faith in his choice, still she was not entirely of his mind—I don't believe Annie has ever spoken to her, lest speech with the sister should be taken for encouragement to the brother. It is only natural perhaps that, as Kate ventured to admit, on the whole she would have preferred me."

"And what did you say to that?" asked the deeply-interested May.

"No, thanks, though I was much obliged, or something like it. I added with some dignity, I flatter myself, though really such dignity is thrown away on Kate, that for the present I was wedded to my art, like Queen Elizabeth to her kingdom, and to my sister Maisie. Besides, nothing could, would, or should ever induce me to meddle with my sister Annie's property, since, according to Kate's own account, it was for love of Annie, and not of me, that Harry Ironside took up his residence under Mrs. Jennings's roof."

But Annie had to give way to some extent. She was compelled to grant an interview to the aggressor. Dr. Ironside arrived on a special errand to the hospital, and he took up the position that Miss Millar was entitled to be consulted. Tom Robinson had been attacked with every symptom of the fever. He and Tom had agreed, in view of the public character of "Robinson's," and with the idea that the step might do good, by serving as an example, that the patient should come to the hospital and be laid up there, where Dr. Harry Ironside was ready to devote himself to the case.

"I believe Tom Robinson has taken the fever on purpose," said Annie to the shocked Dora. "But he shall not have much of my attendance; he may stick to his Dr. Ironside. Dr. Capes tells me he has induced a married woman, with a family, who has a brother and a nephew lodging with her, both of them down with fever, to send them here, so that I shall have them to look after. Now that there is a beginning made," Annie smoothed her ruffled plumes, and waxed cheerful, "if the hot weather does not change, and the disease is not checked, we are likely to have plenty of patients on our hands, with the opportunity of showing what service we can render them and the town."

Just as Annie predicted, the rows of beds began to fill, and she had no lack of occupation; but she changed her tale with regard to Tom Robinson when his case, among many which yielded readily to treatment, and proved triumphantly the gain to be got from a better locality and fresher air, was first grave, then dangerous, and at last verged on hopeless. Now she turned to the worst case on her list, and made it her chief care. She became totally unmindful of the fact that she was thus brought into constant contact with Harry Ironside, that it was he and she who were together fighting death, inch by inch, with desperate endeavour, for the prize which the last enemy threatened to snatch from their hands. Indeed, so entirely did Annie, like the excellent nurse and kind-hearted woman she was, lose sight of her own concerns in the interest of her patient, that she was heard to contradict herself, and record her sincere thankfulness for the strong support of Harry Ironside's presence in the light of the valuable aid he could afford at such a time.

"He was thought very clever at St. Ebbe's. He took his degree with high honours. He was held in much esteem by all the older doctors," she explained to all who cared to hear. "He is in possession of all the latest light on his profession. Now, I have heard father say, and what I have seen confirms it, that though Dr. Capes is most painstaking, and has had a good deal of experience as a general practitioner, he has no great natural ability, and he was not in circumstances to pursue his studies longer than was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass as a medical man. After all I take back my word. I am very glad for poor Tom Robinson's sake that Dr. Harry Ironside is here. No doubt we could have summoned a great specialist from London, but he would only have stayed a short time, and men like him have generally many critical cases on their minds. Now Dr. Harry Ironside is on the spot, and he can watch every turn of the disease which he came to master, and devote his whole attention to this example. I consider Tom Robinson is exceedingly fortunate in getting the chance of such scientific treatment."

But in spite of the good fortune and the devotion spent on him; it looked as if Tom were going to slip through the hands so bent on detaining him, and to die as quietly as he had lived.

When Redcross realized how even the balance was, and how heavily he was swimming for his life, the whole town woke up to his good qualities as a citizen, to what a useful life his comparatively short one had been, to how many benefits he had conferred without the slightest assumption of patronage or superiority of any kind.

It is unnecessary to say that "Robinson's" was figuratively in the deepest mourning, only rousing itself from its despair to proclaim his merits and those of his father before him, as masters. Men gravely pointed out the old servants he had pensioned; those in middle age whom he had kept on when their best days were past; the boys he had already taken in, fitted out, and launched on the world by judicious, unostentatious backing. Women tearfully reminded the listener how carefully he had provided for their comfort and well-being throughout his establishment, from the ample time allowed for their meals and the seats to which they could retire when not actually serving, to the early closing hours, which afforded them and the men who were their associates, some leisure for out-of-doors exercise and indoors recreation. As for mental and spiritual improvement, he was always ready to subscribe liberally to libraries, choral unions, friendly societies, Christian associations, missionary boxes—every conceivable means of rational pleasure, culture, and true human elevation of which his people would avail themselves.

Mrs. Carey called at the Corn Exchange and offered her unprofessional services as a nurse, if further aid were wanted.

Mr. Pemberton, acquainted with the fact of Tom Robinson's illness through communicating with Rose Millar on her commission, wrote that he could hardly keep Lady Mary from descending on Redcross to see after their friend, and if it would be the least good she would come down. It would be but a poor return for the aid Robinson had lent her when her husband lay desperately sick and she had nobody to appeal to, save the fat and fatuous padrone of a miserable little Italian inn.

May, who was at last prevented from coming to her sisters, presented herself when they went to their father's, her eyes swollen with weeping for her "coach."

Every time Annie left the transformed hall of the Exchange and repaired to the rooms which she and Dora occupied, she found a white face on the watch for her, and pale lips which could hardly form the syllables, "How is he now? Oh! Annie, must he die?" At least Dora was on the spot to hear each hour's report, as if she had been his nearest relative, and without asking herself the reason why, that was a little bit of comfort to her. In the same manner Tom Robinson derived a dim satisfaction from the fact that he was lying there under the same roof with Dora Millar, as he would have been supposing she had listened to his suit eighteen months ago, and he had fallen ill in the early days of their marriage. He was afraid it was pure selfishness which made him cease to resent her presence in close proximity to the fever ward, as he had resented it when he did not imagine he might be one of its patients. Sometimes he had a dim fancy that he heard her soft voice through the closed doors, and that it soothed him, though he might be only dreaming, or it was possible that there were tones in Annie's clear voice which under certain emotions of pity and tenderness answered to those of her sister.

Often Annie just shook her head sorrowfully as she warned Dora off till the nurse's dress could be changed. Occasionally she cried out petulantly, "If he would only be impatient, and fret and grumble like other people; if he would not take things so quietly; if he would resist and struggle, I believe he might fight the battle and win it yet. I think he will get over the crisis, but what of that if there is no rallying? He is letting life go because he will not grasp it hard, I suppose for the reason that he has no strong ties to bind him to it. He has either such a poor opinion of his deserts, or such a trust in Providence, that he considers whatever is is best, and does not exert himself to alter the course of events so far as it is in his power. It is beautiful in theory, but it does not always answer in practice. I am not certain whether it does not proceed, after all, from constitutional indolence, or the want of ambition, of which I used to accuse him, or whether he is really too good to live. Anyhow, skill and nursing are wasted upon him."

Dr. Hewett came to see Tom Robinson, and took the seat which Harry Ironside vacated for him, leaving the old friends together.

"Hallo, Rector! It is strange for me to meet you here," said Tom's feeble voice, while the ghost of his old shy smile passed over his haggard face.

"It is equally strange for me to meet you, Robinson," said the Rector, with an inconvenient lump in his throat.

"What a deal of trouble I'm giving," said Tom regretfully.

"Tut, man, nobody grudges the trouble, if you will but pick up and get well again," said the clergyman, almost roughly.

"I can see that Ironside thinks badly of me," said Tom in his quiet way, "and as far as feelings go, it seems to me I have reason to think badly of myself."

"We are all in good hands, Tom," said Dr. Hewett, seeing again the boy who used to play in the Rectory garden with Ned, and speaking to him in the old fashion.

"I know that," answered Tom. "I have known it all along, which has been a blessing to me," he added, a little as if he were speaking of a third person. Then he roused himself further. "I want to tell you where my will is. I don't like to hurt a woman's feelings by speaking of it to my kind, indefatigable nurse. Besides, the Millars will benefit by it."

"The old man," sighed the Rector, "always thinking of others before yourself."

"'I know that my Redeemer liveth,'" was Tom's testimony; "speak to me of Him, Rector, while I am able to hear," said the sick man, in the tone of one whose ears were growing dull to earthly sounds.



CHAPTER XXI.

MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE.

Tom Robinson went still deeper into the shadow of the valley, possibly as far as man ever went and returned. He grew as weak and helpless as an infant, until at last he lost consciousness, and lay prostrate and still, with closed eyes and sealed ears—nothing alive in him save the subtle principle which is compared to a vapour and a breath which no man can see or handle, yet whose presence or absence makes all the difference between an animated body still linked to both worlds and a mass of soulless clay hastening to corruption. All that skill and devotion could do—and Tom Robinson had them both—was to keep on without despairing, maintaining warmth against the growing chillness, and administering stimulants and nourishment by spoonfuls and drops.

On the night which it was feared would be Tom Robinson's last, Miss Franklin would no longer be denied her place among the watchers. She had been kept away in obedience to poor Tom's express orders, that in the attempt to minimize the fever no communication should be kept up on his account between the Corn Exchange where he lay and either his house or "Robinson's," notwithstanding the proofs that the disease did not spread by contagion or infection.

Miss Franklin did not desire to dispossess Annie of the post which, in spite of every remonstrance, she was holding latterly almost night and day. Miss Franklin had no faculty for nursing, and small experience to guide her. She was rather a nervous woman in her impulsiveness, and after one look at what was like the mask of Tom Robinson, utterly incapable of recognizing her or communicating with her, she was so much overcome that she was fain to retire to another room and submit to be gently ministered to by Dora.

Miss Franklin was only too thankful to be suffered to stay there in the background. It did not strike her as odd that nobody in the house except the other patients should go to sleep that night when her cousin was hovering between life and death—nearer death than life. Neither had the outspoken, kind-hearted gentlewoman any particular application of her speech in her mind when she said sorrowfully—"Dear! dear! how grieved he would be if he knew how worn out you were, Miss Dora. He thought that his coming to the hospital would not only serve as a precedent, it would be the simplest, safest, least troublesome plan where he himself was concerned, though if he would have let me, I should have been only too glad to have turned my back on 'Robinson's' for a time, and done what I could for him. There is enough difference in our ages, and I have known him all his life, in addition to our being connections if not near relations, so that nobody need have found fault. Not that I pretend for a moment that I could have done what your sister is doing—that is something quite wonderful in every respect" (and here Miss Franklin did draw up her bountiful figure, and fix the rather small eyes, sunk a little in her full cheeks, pointedly on Dora). "I dare say he liked to have her about him to the last, so long as he was sensible of her presence. Men are extraordinary creatures—that I should say that now, oh! my poor dear cousin Tom."

After she had recovered from her outburst of grief, and was sipping the tea which Dora had made for her, she turned again to her companion. "You look like a ghost yourself, Miss Dora. Will you not lie down in your bedroom and trust me? I shall sit here and bring you word the moment I hear that a change has come;" and at the ill-omened phrase poor Miss Franklin's well-bred, distinct enunciation got all blurred and faltering. In fact she shrank a good deal from the ordeal she was magnanimously proposing for herself. As it happened she had never undergone anything like it before, though she had reached middle age. It was not easy for her to contemplate sitting there all alone through the dreary small hours, knowing that Tom Robinson's spirit—the spirit of the best friend she had ever known—was passing away without word or sign in the adjoining room. It was a relief to her when Dora Millar, looking as if she had been sitting up in turn with every patient in the ward, as pale as a moonbeam and as weak as water, yet shook her head decisively against any suggestion of her retiring to rest.

There was a strong contrast between the couple who were to wait together for death or the morning. Miss Franklin herself might be on the eve of dying—but so long as she lived and went through the mundane process of dressing, she must dress exceedingly well. She was a good, kind woman all the same, and this night she bore a sore heart under her carefully contrived and nicely put on garments.

Poor young Dora, on the contrary, looked all limp and forlorn. The gingham morning-gown she had not changed was huddled on her, and crumpled about her. Her neglected hair was pushed back from her little white face. Annie in her nurse's spotless apron and cap looked a hundred times trimmer, and was altogether a more cheerful object. It was as if the whole world had come to an end for Dora, and she had ceased to notice trifles. Almost the first words Miss Franklin had said to her when the visitor began to recover from the shock she had undergone, were—

"Excuse me, Miss Dora, the lace at your throat is coming undone—let me put it right for you; and an end of your hair has fallen down. I may fasten it up, may I not?"

A delicate, exhausted girl was no great support for a woman under the circumstances, still she was better than nobody. She was company in one form, like the domestic cat, when no more available associate is to be found. Besides, in the middle of their dissimilarity, Miss Franklin had a natural liking for Dora Millar, and had always excepted her from the grudge which the elder woman was inclined to feel against one member of the Millar family. "A nice, well-meaning, gentle girl," Miss Franklin mentally classed Dora. "The most quiet and ladylike of them all." She was a great improvement, in Miss Franklin's estimation, on that too bright and restless Annie, whom everybody cried up as a beauty. She had found, Miss Franklin was creditably informed, a fine vent for her dictatorial imperious temper as a nurse. Yet she, Miss Franklin, ought not to find fault with Annie Millar at this time, when Dr. Capes had said her treatment of the fever patients, with dear Tom among them, was admirable; though, by one of the mysterious decrees of Providence, she might not be permitted to succeed in his case. And she was now ministering to his last wants as she, Barbara Franklin, arrived at mature age, with all the will, had neither the skill nor the courage to minister, much as she owed him, so long as he had other service. She was a captious, vindictive wretch to pick holes in Miss Millar's armour, when she was striving so hard to atone to him for any injury she had ever done him by delivering him from the jaws of death, or at least smoothing his path to the grave.

The seasons had gone on till the late summer was merging into the early autumn. It was the beginning of August, when the days are already not so long as they have been; but, to make up for it, the lengthening nights are balmier than they ever were, and the soft dusk remains full of summer scents and sounds.

It was on such a night that you might imagine a young man, dying long before his time, and yet after he has reached full manhood, and touched the crown of bodily and mental vigour, without ever feeling the tide on its turn.

The night was so warm that the windows of the room in which Dora and Miss Franklin sat were wide open. There was a lamp lit within, but it did not render the darkness without so great as to hide the outlines of trees in the nearest garden, and even the dim shape of a bed of late flowering, tall white lilies. Their heavy fragrance was on the air; and if ever there is a fragrance which is solemn and tender like the love of the dying and the memory of the dead, it is the all-pervading scent of lilies.

Annie Millar could never have been so good a listener as Dora was when Miss Franklin, constitutionally loquacious, relieved her distress, and got rid of the dragging hours, by indulging in a long and affectionate oration on Tom Robinson, the man who, not so many yards from them, was lying as indifferent to praise and blame as when he first entered this wonderful world, with all its joys and sorrows, from which he was ready to depart.

"You know, he is not really my cousin," the womanly confidence began; "the tie between us hardly counts—it is only that Mr. Robinson's first wife was my mother's sister. But I always called Mr. Charles Robinson and his second wife uncle and aunt. I might well do it, for they were a good uncle and aunt to me. I should have known few pleasures when I was growing up, and long afterwards, if it had not been for them. The Robinsons used to go away trips every summer to Devonshire and Derbyshire, the Yorkshire moors, the Cumberland lakes, Scotland, the Black Forest, Switzerland, and they always took me to see the world, and spend my summer holidays with them. How generous and kind they were in their friendliness! Tom was usually of the party—first as a child, then as a growing boy; but child or boy, such a nice manly little fellow, so much thought of, yet not at all spoilt. He was fond of reading, yet full of quiet fun, and in either light never in anybody's way. He was so considerate of his mother and me, and so helpful to us. The cows he has driven away! the horses going at large he has kept off! the bulls he has held at bay! I confess I am not brave in proportion to my size. I am very timid in such matters, and, strange to say, Aunt Robinson, though a country-woman born and bred, was as great a coward as I where farm animals were in question; but we always knew ourselves safe when Tom was at hand, and he never laughed at us more than we could stand."

"I can understand," said Dora faintly. "He once helped us—May and me—when a strange dog attacked Tray; and now Tray is running about with May full of life and health, while his champion is——" She could not say the words.

Miss Franklin looked at her approvingly, even went so far as to stroke one of the cold trembling hands lying nerveless in Dora's lap. "You will allow me to say that you are a dear, tender-hearted girl, Miss Dora. You could have appreciated my cousin Tom. What a tower of strength he was to me when I felt I was getting middle-aged, and my system of teaching was becoming old-fashioned. I had been in so many homes belonging to other people, with never a home of my own, for upwards of thirty years, since my poor father and mother both died before I was twenty. I do not say that I was not for the most part well enough treated, because I hope I did my best, and I believe I generally gave satisfaction. I had my happy hours like other people. But it was all getting so stale, flat, and unprofitable—I suppose because I was growing weary of it all, and longing for a change. You see I had not quite come to the age when we cease to want changes, and are resigned just to go on as we are to the end. In reality I could see no end, except the poorest of poor lodgings and the most pinching straits, with the very little money I had saved. (My dear, even finishing governesses can save so little now-a-days.) Or perhaps there was the chance of my being taken into some charitable institution. You will admit it was not a cheerful prospect."

"No, it was not," said Dora, in dreary abstraction.

"As I said," resumed Miss Franklin, "I had been in so many schoolrooms; I had seen so many pupils grow up, go out into the world, and settle in life, leaving me behind, so that when they came back on visits to their old homes, they were prepared to pity and patronize me. I could not continue cudgelling my poor brains until I had not an original thought in my head, and all to keep up such acquirements as I had, and preserve a place among younger, better equipped girls, certain to outstrip me eventually."

"I suppose so," acquiesced Dora mechanically.

"Then poor dear Tom came to see me, and I told him what I was thinking. He got me to pay a visit to Redcross, and made a new opening for me. I may say without self-conceit that I was always considered to have a good taste in dress. I know it was a question which had never failed to interest me, to which I could not help giving a great deal of attention—making a study of it, as it were. Tom insisted that I could be of the greatest use to him, and was worth a liberal salary, which I was not likely to lose. And there was a comfortable refined nest, which I could line for myself, awaiting me in the pleasant rooms he had looked out for me."

"I know, Miss Franklin," said Dora, with a faint smile; "you told Phyllis Carey, and she told May, who repeated it to me. But I thought it might be a relief to you to speak of it again."

"Yes," cried the eager woman; "and it has all answered so well—the duties not too heavy, and really agreeable to me; the young women and men, under Tom's influence, no doubt, perfectly nice and respectful; and within the last six months, dear little Phyllis like a daughter or niece to me. I thought always I should be able to do something in return for him one day, yet with all the will in the world I have been able to do nothing until it has come to this;" and poor Miss Franklin sobbed bitterly under the burden of her unrequited obligations, and beneath the dove's neck cluster of feathers in her bonnet.

It was for Dora in her turn to seek to soothe and compose her companion. "I am sure you have been of the greatest service to him, and that he has enjoyed the near neighbourhood of an old friend—his mother's friend. Oh! think what a comfort it will be to you to have that to look back upon," finished Dora, in a voice trembling as much as Miss Franklin's.

Miss Franklin sat up, instinctively put her bonnet straight, wiped her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, and gazed pensively into the empty air.

"God's ways are not as our ways," she said; "and certainly we are told that we are not to look for our reward in this world. Still one would have expected—one would have liked that it had not been so hard all through for Tom—not merely to have been denied the desire of his heart, but to have had to endure in his last moments to be set aside, to lie still and look on at what is going to happen."

Dora sat mystified; but she had not the spirit left to seek an explanation.

Miss Franklin was not aware that an explanation was needed. "I know," she added, "how kind and attentive your sister has been to Tom, and I understand nothing can exceed the interest Dr. Ironside has taken in my cousin, while he has made the most unremitting efforts to save him; still you will grant that so long as my poor Tom was conscious, it must have been very, very trying for him to see the terms these two were on. I don't listen much to gossip"—the speaker declared, in a parenthesis, with a little air of dignity and reserve even at that moment—"but it is the talk of the town that he has followed her down from London, and that they are to be married as soon as the epidemic is past. Nobody can say anything against it. They are well matched. They will be a fine-looking couple," she struggled to acknowledge with becoming politeness and impartiality.

"This is the first time I have heard of it, I can say with truth," said Dora wearily, without so much as a smile at the characteristic report. She thought the mention of it most unsuitable at such a season. The very word marriage smote her. "And even if it were so, what could it have signified to Mr. Tom Robinson?" she was about to add naively, when a light flashed upon her. She had often wondered how much Miss Franklin, "Robinson's," the whole town, knew of what had taken place eighteen months ago. She saw now that however little the lady might care for gossip, a distorted version of the truth in which she was interested had reached her. Either there had been a very natural mistake on the part of some of the local newsmongers, or Miss Franklin herself had fallen into the error. The belle of the Millar family and not Dora had been believed to be the object of Tom Robinson's pursuit. The blunder had been perpetuated in Miss Franklin's case by the good feeling and good breeding which would keep her from discussing Tom Robinson's affairs with her neighbours more than she could help, and would prevent her attempting such a cross-examination of the man himself as might have elicited the truth.

"Oh! I know now what you mean," cried Dora, on the impulse of the moment, "and you were altogether wrong. He has been spared such misery —nobody could have been so barbarous as to inflict it on him, if it had been as you suppose."

Miss Franklin was sensitive and imaginative on dress, but she was not imaginative or even very observant with regard to anything else. She understood Dora's protest to refer to an actual engagement between Dr. Harry Ironside and Miss Millar.

"Well, well," she said a little dryly, "people do exaggerate. Matters may not have gone quite so far, and I can only trust that he, Tom, has not been sensible of what is in the air, though I have always understood love, while it is said to be blind in one sense, is very sharp-sighted in another. I believe every one else sees where the land lies. I saw it myself so far as the gentleman was concerned—he could not keep his eyes off her, though I was not five minutes in their company, and I was full of my poor cousin Tom. I am sure I hope they may be happy," gulping down the hope. "Tom would have wished it, quite apart from her having done her duty by him, at the cost of some pain to herself, no doubt; while Dr. Ironside has been more than kind, which nobody had any call to expect. He must be a very fine young man, likely to win what he fancies. Every woman is entitled to her choice, and most people would applaud your sister's choice. The thing that puzzles me—you will forgive me for mentioning it just this once, for where is the good of discussion now?—is that as, I have been told, she did not meet Dr. Ironside till she went to her London hospital, how, when she had got no opportunity of contrasting the two men, when she had not even seen one of them, she could yet be so set against Tom's proposal, knowing him to be the man he is—was, alas! I should say. Why was she so very hard to poor Tom?"

"Oh, don't say that," besought Dora, in much agitation. "Don't bring that forward at this moment."

But Miss Franklin, in the strength of her family affections, felt that she owed it to the manes of Tom Robinson to express to the disdainful damsel's sister a candid opinion that he had been summarily and severely dealt with. "I was not in his confidence, but I could tell that something was going to happen, and that he was very much cut up when it all came to nothing."

"Oh, don't say that," repeated Dora, clasping her hands over her eyes, and weeping behind them. "What good can it do except to inflict needless torture?"

"I don't mean to reproach you," said Miss Franklin, a little bewildered, but still very hot and sore. "You had nothing to do with it, and I am sure you could not have been so heartless. Forgive me for the reflection on your sister, who is so much thought of, whom everybody is praising, with reason, for what she has done in nursing the sick and poor. But young girls ought to be more careful. I don't mean to say that she trifled with my cousin Tom—I have no right to say that—simply that she never gave him a thought. Tom was surely deserving of a thought," cried Miss Franklin indignantly. "Dr. Ironside may be all very well—I have nothing to say against him—quite the reverse. Tom is not to be compared to him in personal appearance, and the one is a professional man, while the other thought fit to continue a linen-draper like his good father before him; but that is by no means to infer that Miss Millar has chosen the better husband of the two. Girls are so foolish—they play with fire, and never look or take it into account where and whom it may burn. Tom Robinson deserved more respectful treatment in Redcross. He has never been like himself since. I used to hear him whistling and humming tunes to himself as he worked in the office—there is no more of that, or of his hearty interest in everything."

"Miss Franklin, it is you who are pitiless to say this to me to-night," panted Dora, rising against the inhumanity, and totally forgetting that the speaker did not hold the clue which would have told her how her words scourged her listener.

"I am not blaming you, Miss Dora," said the accuser again, more bitterly than she had yet spoken. For she was in her heart accusing Dora Millar of affectation in pretending not to be able to hear a word against her sister, and in declining to listen to the pardonable utterance of a reproach directed against what Miss Franklin called in her heart Annie Millar's arrogance and callousness. Tom Robinson's cousin was provoked, not pacified.

"I dare say Tom would never have had this wretched fever but for the blow he got then," she was tempted to persist; "or if he had caught it, he would have thrown it off without any harm done. I can bear witness to his sound constitution to begin with. Everybody knows how disappointment and mortification lower the system, and he was never over careful of himself. I cannot quite understand why he took the cool rebuff he received so much to heart; but he did so, and you see the consequence."

"Spare me! spare me!" cried Dora passionately. "Don't say I have killed him, or I shall die myself, perhaps it is the best thing I can do."

Before Miss Franklin could do more than stare aghast, with a horrified inkling of the real facts of the case, and the tremendous mess she had got into, there was the sound of the soft opening of a door in the near distance, and a step rapidly approaching.

The two women who had been upbraiding each other were mute in an instant, first held their breaths, then sprang up and clung to each other, partners in sorrow, with teeth beginning to chatter, and eyes to grow large and wild. What had they been doing in the name of a gentle and manly soul, in the face of the awful news on its way, the majesty of Death investing the house?

It was only Annie, looking perfectly collected, nay, a trifle elated. "He is the least shade better—we both think so; and the slightest improvement means so much at this stage—the right crisis, I believe. He has been really sleeping. He swallows with less difficulty. He has roused himself ever so little, but he is fearfully faint and weak. We cannot get him to take more stimulants than we have been giving him. I am afraid there is no toilet-vinegar in the house. I came to see if either of you had a smelling-bottle, which might revive him."

All that Miss Franklin could do was to shake her head. She was so thankful, yet she felt so guilty, so ashamed of herself.

Dora fumbled nervously in her pocket and gave Annie something, which she carried off in triumph. Miss Franklin sat down again and cried afresh between trembling joy and lively vexation. "Oh, won't it be a mercy, for which we can never praise our Maker too much, if dear Tom gets over his illness after all?" she managed to say; but she could do no more—even that lame speech was made awkwardly. To apologize for the heinous offence she had committed would be a greater enormity than the offence itself.

But when Miss Franklin had time to think it over afterwards, she was under the impression that Dora Millar had forgotten all about their altercation. She sat there with hands clasped, lips parted, and brimming eyes half raised to Heaven, as if in instinctive acknowledgment of a thousand piteous prayers in the act of being answered by Him who counts the stars and calls them by name, and heals the broken in heart. Miss Franklin's account of Dora's look was that, for a moment, she was positively frightened at the dear girl, Dora seemed so near another world at that moment, and as likely as not to be holding communication with it. Even Tom Robinson could not have been nearer when he was more than half way across the border-land.



CHAPTER XXII.

A SHRED OF HOPE.

Tom Robinson's recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry Ironside to rejoice with her on their success.

"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want to sing and dance—don't you, Dr. Ironside?"

Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr. Harry forgot all about his patient at that moment when he saw his opportunity and seized it.

He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest, when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings.

"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?"

They were alone together in the little side-room, empty but for its hospital stores, where they had so often consulted, with and without Dr. Capes, on the condition of the ward. There was no longer any fluster of doubt and hesitation in his manner. He stood there in his young comely manhood, prepared to put his fate to the test, claiming his right to do so, and challenging her to deny his claim.

In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside, to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the operating theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in confused greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his eyes; and she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued her dearly held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family, there must be war to the knife between her and this self-willed young man. She must, as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from him, while refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating reason for the flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the folly of Rose in playing into his hands.

Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not, while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of transacting their every-day business.

But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness, in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood, where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable, each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first, till—he must say it—her example and influence had inspired him with greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made inquiries and had heard of a post—in fact he had got the refusing of it—in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than gold-diggers or miners in the diamond-fields—that is, pioneers of civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who were in the van—on the spot—had gone so far as to lay the foundation of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common. He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask her opinion and advice first.

She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely.

"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony; while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with it, and have as fine a future before you as you can desire. If the scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the former."

"That is enough," he said with conviction.

"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to turn the conversation from ominous personalities.

"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully, "because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about keeping house for me as she has always proposed—a rough, primitive style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when matters are smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided, perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate. "You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you might be the making of a newly-founded hospital."

"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had any idea of.

"And what do you say?" he turned upon her.

"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say."

"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that."

"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude."

"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at your bidding."

"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say so."

"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning," he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'"

"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her guard; "but you had much better wait and look out for some more gracious person to welcome you."

"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully; "that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way, which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in cleverness and goodness."

"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward."

"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love me."

"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone.

"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and prayed for since the first moment I saw you—think of that, Annie."

"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me to fail them."

"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely cheek, and he was content—for the moment.

"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him.

But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to his chair; you cannot fail to see that."

"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical ruefulness. "Rose will laugh, and May. I believe even Dora and mother will laugh."

"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add, "Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join in the guffaw."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it again."



CHAPTER XXIII.

SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS.

Dr. and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr. Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand.

Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to Africa—still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her, "My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption to its utmost bounds."

To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it, returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical mission.

As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where, however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not consent to give occasion to Rose, or any other person—not even to Harry Ironside himself—to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped, but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover, instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic element in Annie.

Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and gold.

Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that she was part of a painter when she did so.

Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes. The elder sister was returning alone, along the path between the elms by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what "constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field beyond.

Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a tete-a-tete again took possession of her. She would have contented herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on, as if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed, supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether it could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking thus by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he could not accomplish the distance between him and the town?

Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let Dora have her way. He turned and walked back with her, which ought to have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant intention of being overcome by faintness.

"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a peculiarly agreeable one.

Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not resist making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit. Her little fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown themselves before in the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a hat which would not have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss Franklin. Yet the materials were simple and inexpensive to the last degree—a brown holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and the hat some old Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red and maize colours softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips.

Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It seemed right to take it for granted that it was the weather, so she answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she believed was going to be a good one this year.

"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and pitching them head-foremost into the water."

"I should think not," said Dora briefly.

"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet, valorously aiming your stone."

"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the veterinary surgeon's."

"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of a judge.

"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk."

"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of yours which has come into my hands that I have been wishing to give back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?"

As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her.

Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word.

"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good. The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box, with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field, she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it. The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and your fumbling for an instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly plain."

Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin?

"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up to London with me, and—and found it often refreshing in the middle of the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who have the best right to it."

"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's state of mind at the crisis.

On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside.

"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time. "For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to wonder once again whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no, and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!).

Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out, though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have thought of you for a long time now—long before you were so good and generous to all of us—almost ever since you wished—you asked—what I was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse."

He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the revulsion of his great happiness.

She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea, even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose say, and though we were choke-full of youthful folly——" She stopped short without finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she seemed to see.

"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable self.

"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay, unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it."

"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it. But what do we care when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They say,'—what do they say? Let them say."

There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny, had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs. Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in prospect, she invited herself to come down to it.

Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not only acquiescent in her undignified fate—they were jubilant over it.

It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest, bravest woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place of asking, would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not like poor dear little Kate—Annie would be a godsend, even though she had to go the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence against lions and hostile natives. It would be nothing else than savage pride in Dr. Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to let Tom Robinson defray May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who were not rich, but were comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been fitted up by the late Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had in the course of nature left the house empty.

With regard to Rose, she would have to submit to be more or less Harry Ironside's charge till she painted and sold such 'stunning' pictures that she could afford to look down on his paltry aid. What, not allow him to assist his own sister-in-law, when he was so thankful to think that she might be like a sister in the meantime for his poor little Kate to fall back upon? Why, the girls could go on making a home together at his good friend Mrs. Jennings's, till it was right for Kate, after she was old enough to choose, to cast in her lot with him and Annie, supposing the colony prospered. His heart was already in that strange, far-away region, which, with all its mysteries and wonders—ay, and its terrors—has such an attraction for the young and high-spirited, the typical pilgrims to a later New England.

And what did Annie think of this march stolen upon her, this attempt to extort a yard where she had only granted an inch of favour? Perhaps she was dazzled by what would have repelled many another woman, in the primitive, precarious, exciting details of the life of a young colony. Perhaps her heart and imagination were alike taken by storm when she thought of the untenanted hospital wards and the patients calling for her to go over and help them. Perhaps she was simply beginning so to identify herself with Harry Ironside that what he did seemed her doing. Anyhow Annie did not say no.

The Miss Dyers remarked oracularly, when the double marriage was announced in Redcross, that it was just what they had expected. The observation was somewhat vague, like other oracles' speeches. The general public of Redcross, including the Careys and Hewetts, were less indefinite and more cordial in their expression of satisfaction at the suitable settlement in life of the little Doctor's elder daughters.

Miss Franklin could not be too thankful and pleased that, after all, she had done no mischief to her cousin Tom by her blunder, and by what had been her only too personal reproaches and revelations addressed to his future wife on the night when he was believed to be lying dying. In fact, if she, Barbara Franklin, had not been conscious of a huge mistake, with all the deplorable consequences it might have carried in its train, if she had not thus been kept shamefacedly humble and silent as to her share in the business, she might have taken credit to herself, with greater reason than Mrs. Jennings could boast, of having united a supremely happy couple who were drifting apart. Even if Miss Franklin's part in it had been played voluntarily and advisedly, she would never have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical music and waning foreign languages, and by continuing a finishing governess to the day of her death—or rather till she was superannuated, and had to retire to a too literal garret.

"Oh! Jonathan"—Mrs. Millar could not resist a long-drawn sob on the great day of the double marriage—"it is all very well to say Annie has got a good husband—a fine disinterested young man, certain to be distinguished in his profession, you tell me. I believe that, and am very thankful for it. How could I bear the parting otherwise? But to let our eldest, our prettiest, and wittiest, with her warm heart and untiring energy—'the flower of the flock,' as people used to call her when the children were young—go out to Africa, it may be to meet unheard-of trials, like your poor Aunt Penny, it may be never to see our faces again——" Mrs. Millar could say no more.

"Hush! hush! Maria; you must be reasonable—you must take the bad with the good," enjoined the little Doctor from his arm-chair. "Why, you are making as much commotion as you did when Annie said she would be a nurse. Is an hospital ward at home so preferable to an hospital ward in the dark continent, which is ceasing to be dark? Its sun is only too blazingly bright, its river plains too teemingly fertile, its mountains too grand even in the grander monotony of its deserts. There is gold in its dust, and its rocks are glittering with diamonds. But, thank God, that is not all. It is the great country for which Livingstone was content to spend his life, where the Moffats made the wilderness blossom like the rose, and Colenso won the wild heart of the Zulu to trust him as a brother. You will have Dora and Tom next door to you, and Rose and 'little May' will be constantly coming and going. As for Annie and Harry, how can you tell that their special gifts would not be wasted here, as I have often thought hers would have been if she had continued only a pretty, sprightly young lady, and not grown up into an hospital nurse!"

"Perhaps you are right, Jonathan," answered his wife meekly, coming round, as she did now more than ever, to his side of the question.

"Do you think Sir John Richardson's daughter, Bishop Selwyn's wife, missed the highest calling she was capable of when, instead of presiding over a pleasant country-house or a fine London drawing-room, she consented with all her heart to be landed on an island in Melanesia, and left among the native converts to help to prepare the Malay girls for confirmation? Her husband was away in the meantime in his missionary yacht on his noble enterprise, ready to take her off the island on his return, and not fearing to trust her in the interval to their God whose work she was doing," argued the old man, with a note of something like exultation in his voice. "Annie and Harry are not going out to Africa, as my Aunt Penny and poor Beauchamp of Waylands went to Australia in the days of the earlier squatters, entirely for their own hand, and because they cannot help themselves, since there is nothing left for them to do here. Our children are going to render gallant service on which their talents are well bestowed, of which we shall always be proud to hear. They are, as I told you before, our hostages in the carrying out of the great purpose of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, by which light is to take the place of darkness, and good of evil, from the rivers even to the ends of the earth."

THE END.