Of course it was Allan; no one but himself would come in with that alert step and cheerful voice. "Well, Carrie, my dear," he said, affectionately, bending over her as she looked up at him--whatever he felt at the sight of her changed face he kept to himself; he kissed me without a word and took his seat by the bedside. "You know, Allan?" she whispered, as he took her hand. "Yes, I know; Uncle Geoffrey has told me; but it may not be as bad as you think--you have much for which to be thankful; for weeks he never thought you would get over it. What does it matter about the lameness, Carrie, when you have come back to us from the very jaws of death?" and his voice trembled a little. "I felt badly about it until Esther talked to me," she returned. "Esther has been such a nurse to me, Allan." He looked at me as she said this, and his eyes glistened. "Esther is Esther," he replied, laconically; but I knew then how I satisfied him. "When we were alone together that night--for I waited downstairs to say good-night to him, while Deborah stayed with Carrie--he suddenly drew me toward him and looked in my face. "Poor child," he said, tenderly, "it is time I came home to relieve you; you have grown a visionary, unsubstantial Esther, with large eyes and a thin face; but somehow I never liked the look of you so well." That made me smile. "Oh, Allan, how nice it is to have you with me again!" "Nice! I should think so; what walks we will have, by the bye. I mean to have Carrie downstairs before a week is over; what is the good of you both moping upstairs? I shall alter all that." "She is too weak too move," I returned, dubiously. "But she is not too weak to be carried. You are keeping her too quiet, and she wants rousing a little; she feeds too much on her own thoughts, and it is bad for her; she is such a little saint, you know," continued Allan, half jestingly, "she wants to be leavened a little with our wickedness. "She is good; you would say so if you heard her." "Not a bit more good than some other people--Miss Ruth, for example;" but I could see from his mischievous eyes that he was not thinking of Ruth. How well and handsome he was looking: he had grown broader, and there was an air of manliness about him--"my bonnie lad," as I called him. I went to bed that night with greater contentment in my heart, because Allan had come home; and even Carrie seemed cheered by the hopeful view he had taken of her case. "He thinks, perhaps, that after some years I may not be quite so helpless," she whispered, as I said good-night to her, and her face looked composed and quiet in the fading firelight; "anyhow, I mean to bear it as well as I can, and not give you more trouble."