Hall took her to a room, and presently she came forth all fresh and nice, the travel dust gone, and her bright brown hair smooth and glossy. Her grey dress was soft, one that would not disturb a sick-room; it had a bit of white lace at the throat and wrists, and a little pearl brooch in front. She was twenty-one last birthday, but did not look as much. Blair had been in to prepare Sanker, and his great eyes (only great since his illness) were staring for her with a wild expectation. You never saw brother and sister less alike; the one so nice, the other ugly enough to frighten the crows. Sanker had my hand clasped tight in his, when she stooped to kiss him. I don't think he knew it; but I could not get away. In that moment I saw how fond they were of each other. "Could not the mother come, Mary?" "No, papa is--is not well," she said, for of course she would not tell him yet of any accident. "Papa wanted her there, and you wanted her here; she thought her duty lay at home, and she was not afraid but that God would raise up friends to take care of you." "What is the matter with him?" "Some complicated illness or other," Mary Sanker answered, in careless tones. "He was a little better when I came away. You have been very ill, Edward." He held up his wasted hand as proof, with a half smile; but it fell again. "I don't believe I should have pulled through it all, Mary, but for Blair." "That's the gentleman I saw. The one without a coat. Has he nursed you?" Sanker motioned with his white lips. "Right well, too. He, and Hall, and Johnny here. Old Hall is as good as gold when any of us are ill." "And pays herself out by being tarter than ever when we are well," I could not help saying: for it was the truth. "Blair saved Todhetley's life," Sanker went on. "We used to call him Baked Pie before, and give him all the trouble we could." "Ought you to talk, Edward?" "It is your coming that seems to give me strength for it," he answered. "I did not know that Frost had written home." "There was a delay with the letters, or I might have been here three days ago," said Miss Sanker, speaking in penitent tones, as if she were in the habit of taking other people's faults upon herself. "While papa is not well, the clerk down at the mine opens the business letters. Seeing one directed to papa privately, he neither spoke of it nor sent it up, and for three days it lay unopened." Sanker had gone off into one of his weak fits before she finished speaking: lying with his eyes and mouth wide open, between sleeping and waking. Hall came in and said with a tone that snapped Miss Sanker up, _it wouldn't do_: if people could not be there without talking, they must not be there at all. I don't say but that she was a capable nurse, or that when a fellow was downright ill, she spared the wine in the arrowroot, and the sugar in the tea. Mary Sanker sat down by the bedside, her finger on her lips to show that she meant to keep silence.