I don't want things to change, Professor Valeyon; but if they do, it musn't be through any act of mine, or yours either." By this time they had arrived at the boarding-house; and the old gentleman, having seen Abbie safely in to the door, drove homeward, frowning all the way, and at intervals shaking his head slowly.

When he got home, he shut himself into his study, and there paced restlessly backward and forward, and stared out of the window across the valley.
That open spot on the hill-top seemed to afford little or no enlightenment or satisfaction; and when he sat down to his solitary dinner, the frown had not yet cleared away.
The next day the rain was over, and a cart was sent up to the parsonage, containing Bressant's books, and such other of his belongings as he would be likely to need during his illness; and, accompanying them, a note from Abbie, expressing her regret at his misfortune, and her hopes that he would return to his rooms at her house as soon as his health was sufficiently reestablished.

The young man heard the note read, and congratulated himself, as he closed his eyes with a yawn, that he was not under his quondam landlady's ministrations.
But even the best circumstances could do little to lighten the insufferable tediousness of his confinement.

Probably, however, such changes and modifications as may have been in progress in his nature, attained quicker and easier development by reason of his physical prostration.

The alteration in his bodily habits and conditions paved the way for an analogous moral and mental process.