Dear Cockburn for some time showed no eagerness to exercise his latent powers; but his delicacy in addressing so great an heiress once overcome, swelled into heroic proportions, and made the love affairs of two extremely plain and quiet people into a wildly romantic drama. They seemed surprised, but well content, when they found themselves settled in their pretty home, still prettier than Dr. Wilson's, because it showed yet newer ideas; and Mrs. Cockburn Wilson, who had never known society, developed a taste for it, which her sister-in-law well knew how to direct. Lucy's active mind had just run down the stream of time to the present, and was boldly projecting itself forward into the future, and the throbbing pulses her one painful memory had raised were subsiding in the soothing task of planning the decorations for a dinner party for which Jenny's invitations were already out. She had just decided that it would make a good winter effect to fill all Jenny's lovely Benares brass bowls with red carnations, when her husband entered the room. The crest of sandy locks, which had won Dr. Wilson his boyish title, had thinned and faded now. It was difficult to say of what colour it had been; and his face was of no colour at all. He had no salient points, and won attention chiefly by always looking very tired. This evening he looked doubly so. "Dear Henry, I am so glad!" cried his wife, springing up to give him an affectionate embrace. "You will have something to eat?" and, as he nodded silently, she rang the bell twice, the only signal needed at any hour to produce an appetising little meal at once; and she herself waited on him while he ate. "How is the little boy?" she asked timidly. "Very low." "Are you going back?" "Directly. I am going to operate as soon as Stevens gets there. I have telephoned for him." "Is there any hope?" "Can't say." "Can I do anything?" "You might come and take the other children home with you--all but the baby." "I can just as well have her too." "I would rather have her there; her mother needs her." "Yes, I suppose you don't want Mabel in the room while the operation is going on." "I don't want her there at all. She's of no use." "Poor thing!" "She can't help it." "Could I do anything there? If I can, Jenny will take the children, I know." "No, there's no need of that." The doctor threw out his sentences between mouthfuls of food automatically taken from a plate replenished by his wife. "What nurse have they?" "They've had Nelly Fuller--she is a very fair one; but of course they need two now, and one of them first rate, so I got Julia Mitchell for them." "Julia! but how ever could you make Mrs. Sypher give her up?" "I had no trouble." "And how can the Talbots ever manage to pay her?" "That will be all right. I told them she would not expect her full price for such a short engagement, in a gap between two others. I settled it with her myself beforehand, of course."