Another day, when her father had been sitting by her, reading and talking to her, he noticed that she looked at him with a sort of puzzled wonder in her eyes. 'What is it, my child?' he asked, leaning over her and stroking her hair with caressing hand. 'Do you feel weary of the reading, Olive?' 'No, oh no; it was beautiful,' she returned, with a trembling lip; 'I was only thinking--wondering why you loved me.' 'Love you, my darling! do not fathers love their children, especially when they have such good affectionate children?' 'But I am not good,' she returned, with something of her old shrinking. 'Oh, papa, why did you and Cardie want me so, your poor useless Olive; even Cardie loves me now, and I have done nothing but lie here and give trouble to you all; but you are all so good--so good,' and Olive buried her pale face in her father's shoulder. The old self-depreciation waking up to life, the old enemy leaguing with languor and despondency to mar the sweet hopefulness of convalescence. Mildred in desperation determined to put her fears to the proof when Olive grew strong enough to bear any conversation. The opportunity came sooner than she hoped. One day the cloud lifted a little. Roy had been admitted to his sister's room, and his agitation and sorrow at her changed appearance and his evident joy at seeing her again had roused Olive from her wonted lethargy. Mildred found her afterwards lying exhausted but with a smile on her face. 'Dear Roy,' she murmured, 'how good he was to me. Oh, Aunt Milly,' clasping Mildred's hands between her wasted fingers, 'I don't deserve for them to be so dear and good to me, it makes me feel as though I were wicked and ungrateful not to want to get well.' 'I dreaded to hear you say this, Olive,' returned Mildred. As she sat down beside her, her grieved look seemed a reproach to Olive. 'It was not that I wanted to leave you all,' she said, laying her cheek against the hand she held, 'but I have been such a trouble to every one as well as to myself; it seemed so nice to have done with it all--all the weariness and disappointment I mean.' 'You were selfish for once in your life then, Olive,' returned Mildred, trying to smile, but with a heavy heart. 'I tried not to be,' she whispered. 'I did not want you to be sorry, Aunt Milly, but I knew if I lived it would all come over again. It is the old troublesome Olive you are nursing,' she continued softly, 'who will try and disappoint you as she has always done. I can't get rid of my old self, and that is why I am sorry.' 'Sorry because we are glad; it is Olive and no other that we want.' 'Oh, if I could believe that,' returned the girl, her eyes filling with tears; 'but it sounds too beautiful to be true, and yet I know it was only Cardie's voice that brought me back, he wanted me so badly, and he asked me to stay. I heard him--I heard him sob, Aunt Milly,' clutching her aunt with weak, nerveless fingers.