The talk had wandered then to different subjects, and John Randolph listened to the soft play of Evadne's fancy and watched the light in her wonderful eyes. Her nature, so long repressed in an uncongenial environment, in this new soil of love and sympathy was blossoming richly and he found her very fair. He had rarely seen her resting. Now the shapely hands were folded together in a beautiful stillness--and then the breeze had waved aside a flower, and a sunbeam, darting through the trellis, fell upon the stone in her ring and made it sparkle with a baleful fire! "Poor Louis!" Isabelle had said, the last time he had been called to prescribe for her frequently recurring attacks of indisposition, "he will have to wait for promotion now before he can think of marriage. It is very hard for him." So again the truth and the lie had mingled. CHAPTER XXXII. Very sweet grew the life at 'The Willows' and Mrs. Everidge and Evadne and Miss Diana found their hands full of happy work. Unavella still reigned supreme in her kitchen. "'Tain't a great sight harder to cook for a dozen than six," she had remarked sententiously, when the plan was unfolded to her, "it's only a matter uv quantity, the quality's jest the same. Ef Miss Di-an's a'goin ter start in ter be a she Atlas an' carry the world on her shoulders, she'll find I'm warranted ter wash an' not shrink in the rinsin'. I'm not a'goin ter be left behind, without I hev changed my name." Dyce kept the rooms in spotless order and waited upon the guests. "Dear friend," said Evadne one morning, as she watched her putting loving touches to the dining table, "you take as much trouble as if you expected Jesus Christ to be here!" "So I does, Miss 'Vadney," she answered simply, "I never feels comfortable 'cept when dere's a place fer de Lord," and Evadne answered, "Dear Dyce, you make me feel ashamed!" Many and varied were the guests who partook of their hospitality. The famine which no material wealth can alleviate is not confined to the dwellings of the poor. Hearts starve beneath coverings of velvet and loneliness often rides in a carriage. Many were the patients whom the world counted "well to do" that John Randolph sent to Evadne to be comforted. There was nothing to make them suspect that the keen intuition of the young physician had read their secret. 'The Willows' was simply a charming retreat where he sent them to try his favorite tonics of sunlight and oxygen; they never dreamed they were to be the recipients of favors which would not be rendered in the bill.