"You _will_ take it," he replied, calmly, holding the glass in his hand, and fixing on her the serene darkness of his eyes. He did not press it to her lips, or use any coercion. He merely looked steadfastly, yet gently into her face, while the deep color she had noticed the first night she saw him came slowly into his cheeks. He did not say "you _must_," but "you _will_," and she felt the difference. She felt the singular union of gentleness and power exhibited in his countenance, and was constrained to yield. Without making farther resistance, she put forth her hand, took the glass, and swallowed the potion at one draught. "It will do you good," said he, with a grave smile, but he did not praise her. "Why didn't you tell me so before?" she asked. "You must learn to confide in your friends," he replied, passing his hand gently over the child's wan brow. "You must trust them, without asking them for reasons for what they do." Helen thought she would try to remember this, and it seemed easy to remember what the young doctor said, for the voice of Arthur Hazleton was very sweet and clear, and seemed to vibrate on the ear like a musical instrument. CHAPTER II. ----"with burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amid his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant,--she busied heard the sound Of rustling leaves, but minded not, _at first_."--_Milton._ Helen recovered, and the agitation caused by her sickness having subsided, everything went on apparently as it did before. While she was sick, Mrs. Gleason resolved that she would keep her as much as possible from Miss Thusa's influence, and endeavor to counteract it by a closer, more confiding union with herself. But every one knows how quickly the resolutions, formed in the hour of danger, are forgotten in the moment of safety--and how difficult it is to break through daily habits of life. Even when the pulse beats high with health, and the heart glows with conscious energy, it is difficult. How much more so, when the whole head is sick, and the whole spirit is faint--when the lightest duty becomes a burden, and _rest_, nothing but _rest_, is the prayer of the weary soul! The only perceptible change in the family arrangements was, that Miss Thusa carried her wheel at night into the nursery, and installed herself there as the guardian of Helen's slumbers. The little somnambulist, as she was supposed to be, required a watch, and when Miss Thusa offered to sit by the fire-side till the family retired to rest, Mrs. Gleason could not be so ungrateful as to refuse, though she ventured to reiterate the warning, breathed by the feverish couch of her child. This warning Miss Thusa endeavored to bear in mind, and illumined the gloomy grandeur of her legends by some lambent rays of fancy--but they were lightning flashes playing about ruins, suggesting ideas of desolation and decay.