knew at any rate that there was something between her and Sutton: yet Maud had never summoned up courage to inform her what it was, nor had Felicia chosen to inquire. It was rather agitating, accordingly, that Felicia should now be about to have an opportunity of judging for herself how matters stood. Then Sutton arrived, too suffering from his wound to be moved except in a palanquin; and was got, with a great deal of trouble and pain apparently, to the sofa in Vernon's study, which was turned into his sitting-room for the time being, and where the invalid was to spend the day. Here he lay, a close prisoner, as feeble as a bad wound and a month's fever could make him, and quite in a condition for judicious nursing. A man in such a plight wants company--pleasant, gentle, noiseless, unexciting, feminine if possible; he wants to be read to, and sung and played to; he wants cooling drinks, which, when mixed and administered by a hand like Felicia's, are more than nectar; he wants those delicious idle gossips, for which the healthy busy side of life so seldom provides either the opportunity or the mood. If a man lack these, an illness is a dreary affair; if he has them, it may bring him the pleasantest hours of his life. All these pleasant conditions now attended the fortunate Sutton's convalescence. Felicia welcomed him with a joyful cordiality and devoted herself with enthusiasm to the task of making his imprisonment as little wearisome as might be. Vernon stole an hour from his office to read him the 'Pall Mall Gazette;' Maud found herself busy with the rest, a willing attendant on the happy warrior in his hour of weakness. Everybody made a great deal of him. Felicia's little girls, coming with much modesty and many blushes, brought him a nosegay apiece and kissed his hand with a sort of affectionate reverence. His face was wan and thin, and marked with lines of suffering; but the sweet, kind smile was still the same, and the honest eyes and finely-chiselled brow. On the whole Maud found him handsomer and ten times more touching than ever before. She knew, too, before they had been a minute in each other's company that all was well with her. The time of separation, uncertainty, distress, was done: happiness, greater than she had ever dreamed of, was already hers. Her foot stood already on the crowning ridge of existence, and all the horizon blazed with the golden clouds of Hope and Joy.