"I can only promise to do my best," was Arthur's response. "Nature must have time for her work of recuperation." Elsie met her father in the entrance hall on his return. "Ah, papa," she said, looking up smilingly into his face, "I think you will have to rescind your order." "In regard to what?" he asked, stopping to lay a hand lightly on her shoulder, while he smoothed her hair caressingly with the other. "The week of entire rest you bade me take." "No; there is to be no recall of that order." "But our poor injured guest, father? injured in the noble effort to save the life of another!" "He shall have every care and attention without any assistance from you; or Rose either; at least for the present." "But, dear papa, to have you worn out and made ill would be worse than anything else." "That does not follow as an inevitable consequence, and you may safely trust me to take excellent care of number one," he said, with playful look and tone. "Ah, papa, there is not the least use in your trying to make me believe there is any selfishness in you!" "No, I presume not; you have always been persistently blind to my many imperfections. Well, daughter, you need not be troubled lest I should waste too much strength on the poor captain. I do not imagine him to be an exacting person, and we have enough efficient nurses among the servants to do all the work that is needful. My part will be, I think, principally to cheer him, keep up his spirits, and see that he is provided with everything that can contribute to comfort of mind and body. I must leave you now and go to him. I advise a drive for you and your mamma as soon as you can make ready for it; the air is delightfully clear and bracing." "Thank you, papa; the advice shall be followed immediately so far as I am concerned, and the order carefully obeyed," she answered, as he moved on down the hall. The smile with which the captain greeted Mr. Dinsmore's entrance into the room where he lay in pain and despondency was a rather melancholy one. "My dear sir, I feel for you!" Mr. Dinsmore said, seating himself by the bedside, "but you are a brave man and a Christian, and can endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ!" There was a flash of joy in the sufferer's eyes as he turned them upon the speaker, "That, sir, is the most comforting and sustaining thing you could have said to me! Through what suffering was the Captain of our salvation made perfect! And shall I shrink from enduring a little in His service? Ah no! And when I reflect that I might have been killed, and my dear children left fatherless, I feel that I have room for nothing but thankfulness that it is as well with me as it is." "And that some good will be brought out of this trial we cannot doubt," Mr. Dinsmore said; "for 'we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.'"