CHAPTER 6.
_"Love that asketh love again, Finds the barter naught but pain; Love that giveth in full store, Aye receives as much, and more._ _"Love, exacting nothing back, Never knoweth any lack; Love, compelling love to pay, Sees him bankrupt every day."_ LIFE in the sick-room--most of us know what that is; how the whole world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities.
Christian was a born nurse--and nurses, like poets, are born, not made.
You may recognize the faculty in the little girl of ten years old, as she steals into your room to bring you your breakfast, and takes the opportunity to arrange your pillow, and put your drawers in order, and do any other little helpful office which you may need; and you miss it painfully in the matron of sixty, who, with perhaps the kindest intentions, comes to nurse you, taking for granted that she is the best person you could possibly have about you; and yet you would be thankful to shut the door upon her, and struggle, suffer, die alone; as Arthur, child as he was, would rather have died than suffer near his sick-bed either of his two aunts.
Phillis too--he screamed whenever he saw her, and with a jealousy not unnatural, and which Mrs.Grey was rather sorry for than annoyed at, she came into the room continually.

At last it became a question almost of life and death, for the fever ran high; and even Dr.
Anstruther, cheery man as he was, began to look exceedingly grave.
The child must be kept quiet, and how to do it?
For in this crisis Christian found out, what every woman has to find out soon or late, the weak points in her husband.

She saw that, like many another good and brave man, he was in this matter quite paralyzed; that she could rely only upon herself, and act for herself, or else tell him what he was to do, and help him to do it, just like a child.

She did not care for him the less for this--she sometimes felt she cared for him, more; but she opened her eyes calmly to the facts of the case, and to her own heavy responsibility.
She consulted with Dr.Anstruther, and left him to explain things to whomsoever he would; then locked the door, and for eight days and nights suffered no one to cross the threshold of Arthur's room except the doctor.
It was a daring expedient, but the desperation of the time and Dr.
Anstruther's consent and co-operation, gave her courage; she was neither timid nor ignorant; she knew exactly what to do, and she believed, if it were God's will to save Arthur's life, He would give her strength to do it.
"My boy's life--only his life!" she prayed, more earnestly than she had ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long solitary vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end.

In its terrible suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day and hour by hour, as they slipped heavily along.