to thank Madam for many a glass of Madeira, dish of cocoa, plate of fruit, and other things, not only for my patient Robin, but also for myself, and for another, of whom I have now to speak. When, therefore, the master was at length free from pain and in a comfortable sleep, I left him, with Madam's permission, and sought the sick-house in a most melancholy mood, because I believed that Robin would surely die, whatever I should do. And I confess that, having had but little experience of sunstroke and the kind of fever which followeth upon it, and having no books to consult and no medicine at hand, I knew not what I could do for him. And the boasted skill of the physician, one must confess, availeth little against a disease which hath once laid hold upon a man. 'Tis better for him so to order the lives of his patients while they are well as to prevent disease, just as those who dwell beside an unruly river (as I have seen upon the great river Rhone) build up a high levée, or bank, over which it cannot pass. In the sick-house the floor was of earth, without boards; there was no other furniture but two or three wooden beds, on each a coarse mattress with a rug; and all was horribly filthy, unwashed, and foul. Beside the pallet where Robin lay there knelt, praying, a woman with her head in her hands. Heavens! there was, then, in this dark and heathenish place one woman who still remembered her Maker! Robin was awake. His restless eyes rolled about; his hands clutched uneasily at his blanket; and he was talking. Alas! the poor brain, disordered and wandering, carried him back to the old village. He was at home again in imagination, though we were so far away. Yea; he had crossed the broad Atlantic, and was in fair Somerset, among the orchards and the hills. And, only to hear him talk, the tears rolled down my cheeks. 'Alice,' he said. Alas! he thought that he was again with the sweet companion of his youth. 'Alice; the nuts are ripe in the woods. We will to-morrow take a basket and go gather them. Benjamin shall not come to spoil sport. Besides, he would want to eat them all himself. Humphrey shall come, and you, and I. That will be enough.' Then his thoughts changed again. 'Oh! my dear,' he said--in a moment he had passed over ten years, and was now with his mistress, a child no longer. 'My dear, thou hast so sweet a face. Nowhere in the whole world is there so sweet a face. I have always loved thy face; not a day but it has been in my mind--always my love, my sweetheart, my soul, my life. My dear, we will never leave the country; we want no grandeur of rank, and state, and town; we will always continue here. Old age shall find us lovers still. Death cannot part us, oh! my dear, save for a little while--and then sweet Heaven will unite us again to love each other for ever, and for ever'---- 'Oh! Robin! Robin! Robin!' I knew that voice. Oh! Heavens! was I dreaming? Was I, too, wandering? Were we all back in Somerset?