out as far as Mrs. Cox's, if she would help me to dress." Soon after this he was in bed again, and his head was wandering; but still they knew that he was better than he had been.
"You are more of a comfort to your papa than I can be," said Mrs. Crawley to her eldest daughter that night as they sat together, when everybody else was in bed.
"Do not say that, mamma. Papa does not think so."
"I cannot read Greek plays to him as you can do. I can only nurse him in his illness and endeavour to do my duty. Do you know, Grace, that I am beginning to fear that he half doubts me?"
"Oh, mamma!"
"That he half doubts me, and is half afraid of me. He does not think as he used to do, that I am altogether, heart and soul, on his side. I can see it in his eye as he watches me. He thinks that I am tired of him,—tired of his sufferings, tired of his poverty, tired of the evil which men say of him. I am not sure but what he thinks that I suspect him."
"Of what, mamma?"
"Of general unfitness for the work he has to do. The feeling is not strong as yet, but I fear that he will teach himself to think that he has an enemy at his hearth,—not a friend. It will be the saddest mistake he ever made."
"He told me to-day that you were the best of women. Those were his very words."
"Were they, my dear? I am glad at least that he should say so to you. He has been better since you came;—a great deal better. For one day I was frightened; but I am sorry now that I sent for you."
"I am so glad mamma; so very glad."
"You were happy there,—and comfortable. And if they were glad to have you, why should I have brought you away?"
"But I was not happy;—even though they were very good to me. How could I be happy there when I was thinking of you and papa and Jane here at home? Whatever there is here, I would sooner share it with you than be anywhere else,—while this trouble lasts."
"My darling!—it is a great comfort to see you again."
"Only that I knew that one less in the house would be a saving to you I should not have gone. When there is unhappiness, people should stay together;—shouldn't they, mamma?" They were sitting quite close to each other, on an old sofa in a small upstairs room, from which a door opened into the larger chamber in which Mr. Crawley was lying. It had been arranged between them that on this night Mrs. Crawley should remain with her husband, and that Grace
