Mr. White had paid his customary visit; his fiat had alone been wanting to confirm the sudden change from abject despair to lively hope, but, none the less, he rather threw cold water on Colonel Kennedy's boisterous effervescence of delight.

"It does not do to holloa till we are well out of the wood," was his terse remark to Herbert, who, as the most composed and cool of the party, was the most frequent recipient of his pithy sayings.

About noon, Julian spoke again.

"Maud, I never see any of the family but yourself. What has become of my uncle?"

"He was outside the door just now," was the perfectly true response, though the evasion rather smote on Maud's tender conscience, and she added, a little hurriedly :-" Uncle Murray has been backwards and forwards every five minutes this morning."

A sigh of weariness, and then another long pause. Maud was careful to avoid exciting him by conversation. It was enough, she thought, if she answered all his questions, and quite a quarter of an

hour had passed ere he began again.

"Was Herbert here this morning?"

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Yes, and last night, too."

"In this room?" It was very difficult to him, in truth, to discern between the wanderings of his fancy, and the real and genuine facts of the days that had passed all unheeded.

The sight of Paton, who, though present, had not dared come in view till now, seemed to confirm some of Julian's impressions.

"I know there is some one I ought to thank; I know some one who has watched me night and day," repeated he, " when I hardly knew whether I was in this world or the other."

Paton's eyes, as well as his master's, were fixed on Maud; but the smile into which his grave face had relaxed, departed quicker than it came, when Captain Murray had finished his sentence.

It was now Maud's turn to speak, and doing so she rose. "I am going to exert my authority

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over you now," said she, very gently; we must have no more talking yet. Mr. White is coming

again presently, and he has promised Uncle Murray he shall come in if only you are not feverish again. Sick people should have no wills of their own ;" and in this aphorism Julian was content to acquiesce, for he noticed nobody else, though Mrs. Benham, Percival, and Herbert, each in succession, entered

the room; but he was content to lie with closed eyes, or, if he opened them for a moment, to let them rest with a satisfied, happy expression on the little figure, who sat working in the distance, with a narrow ray of light from the still darkened windows, making, to his wavering fancy, a sort of glory round her head.

CHAPTER XVII.

"After long storms and tempests overblown,
The sunne at length his joyous face doth cleare;
So when as fortune all her spight had shewne,
Some blissful hours at last must needs appear;
Else should afflicted wights oft-times dispaire."
Faerie Queene.

S Julian gained strength-a very slow and tedious process-he began to show himself in the light of a very

spoilt child; not that Maud thought him so, but he did not choose to take his medicines from any hand but hers, and it almost seemed as though he were not satisfied, whoever else was with him, if she, too, were not present. The visits of inquiry she duly paid him before breakfast, and the last at night, which brought her to his bedside with a composing draught, always found him expecting and wishing for her; and if she were a little longer downstairs than usual, or later, even

by five minutes, in making her appearance when he expected her, he always must needs ask the reason. Indeed, it happened more than once, when Maud had been detained by Mrs. Murray, that Paton pursued her, and, opening the door with his usual solemn air, announced: "Captain Murray did not feel quite so well, would Miss Bingley step upstairs?"

The first time this occurred, Mrs. Murray was frightened, the next-when Maud was arranging the flowers in the boudoir-she exclaimed peevishly: "How tiresome men are when they are ill! but I suppose you must go, as Julian is so fanciful and nervous; but if you take my advice you won't indulge him too much."

On another occasion Mr. Murray smiled grimly. "He's a troublesome fellow, eh, Maud?"

But no, Maud did not find her patient at all too exacting. She had been well broken in by Edgeworth's fretful irritability when ill, and she was happier in devoting herself to Julian, than she had been since she came to Bankside. She was of use to some one; she had an interest to occupy her, and it was pleasant to tend him, for whatever she did, Julian thought "best done;" and when, at the end of three weeks, Captain Murray left his bed,