Old Mr. Dysart would have failed to perceive the justice of the epithet "selfish" as applied to himself; yet no word so perfectly described him. He was absorbed in the compilation of a complete genealogy of the entire Dysart family, with all its ramifications and allied branches. What became of his daughter while he delved among musty parchments in his stately old library; how the burdens of the household were borne; and how a narrow income was made to cover expenses, were plainly matters upon which he could not be expected to waste his valuable time. The maiden could scarcely have been more alone upon a desert island, or in a magic tower. Her days followed each other with slow, monotonous flow, like the sands in an hour-glass,--each like the one before, and each, too, like the one to follow. Amid such a colorless waste of existence the rich mystery of the wounded stranger appeared doubly brilliant by contrast; and it is small wonder that to the watcher the first gleam of returning intelligence in the sick man's eyes was as the promise of the opening of a door behind which lay an enchanted palace. II. It was yet a day or two before the sick man spoke. He was very weak, and lay for the most part in a deathlike but health-giving sleep. At length the day came when he said feebly:-- "Where am I?" "Here," his nurse answered, with truly feminine irrelevancy. "Where?" "At Glencarleon." He lay silent for some moments, evidently struggling to attach some meaning to the name, and to collect his strength for further inquiries. His eyes expressed his mental confusion. "You were hurt in the steamer accident," she explained. "You came ashore here, and are with friends. Don't try to talk. It is all right." He was too feeble to remonstrate,--too feeble even to reason, and he obeyed her injunction of silence without protest. She retreated to her favorite seat by the window, and took up her sewing; but her revery progressed more rapidly than her stitches, and when she was relieved from her post by old Sarah, she stole softly out of the room to continue her dreaming in an arbor overlooking the water, where, in pleasant weather, she was wont to spend her leisure hours. The next day, when she gave her patient his morning gruel, he watched her with questioning eyes, as if endeavoring to identify her, and at last framed another inquiry. "Who are you?" he asked. "I am Columbine." "Columbine?" "Columbine Dysart." That he knew little more than before was a consequence of the situation, and Mistress Columbine was wise enough to spare him the necessity of saying so. "You do not know us," she said; "but we will take good care of you until you are well enough to hear all about it." "But--" he began, the puzzled look upon his wan face not at all dissipated. "No," she returned, "there is no 'but' about it. It is all right." "But," he repeated with an insistence that would not be denied, "but--"