I was sorry that he should think that I was so easily knocked up; but it was not over-fatigue, nor yet his scolding, that had brought the tears to my eyes.

To-day was the second anniversary of Charlie's death, and through that long, wakeful night, as I sat beside poor Mary's bed, I was recalling the bitter hours when my darling went down deeper into the place of shadows,--when he fought away his young life, while Lesbia and I wept and prayed beside him.

No wonder a word unnerved me; but I could not tell Mr.Hamilton this.
When we met the next day he asked me, rather curtly, if the headache had gone; but when I thanked him, somewhat shyly, for the medicine he had sent, he got rather red, and interrupted me with unusual abruptness.
'You have nothing for which to thank me,' he said, in quite a repellent tone.

'I am glad you obeyed orders and stopped at home; I was afraid you might be contumacious, as usual,'-- which was rather ungracious of him, after the promise he had extracted from me.
I questioned Robin about Miss Hamilton's visit; she had remained with the boy some hours, reading to him and amusing him, and, in Robin's favourite language, 'getting on first-rate; only, just as I was drinking my mugful of tea, parson comes, and Miss Hamilton she says she will be late, and gets up in a hurry, and--' 'Wait a minute, Robin: do you mean Mr.Cunliffe or Mr.Tudor ?' 'Oh, the vicar, to be sure; and he seemed finely surprised to see Miss Hamilton there.

"So you've come to see your old scholar," he says, smiling, and Miss Hamilton says, "Yes; but she must go now," and she drops her glove, and parson looks for it, but it was too dark, and for all his groping it could not be found.