And that's all that matters." If her lips quivered a little over the last assertion, she turned her head away that he might not see.

For she was persistently cheery in his presence, full of tender humour, always undismayed.
He leaned upon her instinctively.

She propped him so sturdily, with a strength so amazing and so steadfast.

Sometimes she laughed softly at his weakness, as a mother might laugh at the first puny efforts of her baby to stand alone.

And he knew that she loved his dependence upon her, even in a sense dreaded the time when his own strength should reassert itself, making hers weak by comparison.
But that time was coming, slowly yet very surely.