And try as he would, that was all the satisfaction Joshua could obtain from the Old Sailor. In the mean time Basil Kindred's condition had become so serious, that he was unable to leave his room, and he was unreasonably obstinate in his refusal to see a doctor. He knew well enough what was the matter with him, he said, and doctors could not relieve him. But one day, urged by Dan, Minnie brought a doctor to his bedside without consulting him. "Your daughter brought me," said the doctor, seeing that Basil was displeased, and wisely judging that mention of his daughter would calm him. Basil called Minnie to him and kissed her. "Go out of the room, child," he said; "what passes between me and the doctor must be private." Minnie obeyed, and went down stairs to sit with Dan, and the doctor remained with his patient for half an hour. As the doctor came down, Minnie opened the door of Dan's room, and the doctor entered. "Well, sir?" asked Dan. "Your father is suffering from rheumatism and low fever," said the doctor, addressing Minnie. "I have left a prescription in his room; run and get it." Minnie went up stairs, and the doctor said to Dan, "You are very anxious about Mr. Kindred." "Yes, sir, very anxious, both for his sake and for Minnie's." "Minnie--ah! yes, his daughter. Well, I may tell you in confidence what I must not tell her. He is suffering from something more than rheumatic fever. He has a disease which may prove fatal at any moment. A strong mental shock would very likely prove fatal to him. His mind is far from tranquil at the present time, and it is absolutely necessary that he should have quiet and repose. Good-morning." Grieved as Dan was to hear this, it relieved him, for it enabled him to account for the sudden change in Basil Kindred's manner which had so perplexed him. It also served to account for a change he had observed in Minnie. It was not that she was less friendly towards him; on the contrary, she had on many occasions been more tender to him than usual. But the frank cordiality of her manner was gone; she was more reserved, and an engrossed expression, evidently born of painful thought, had settled upon her face. Dan had watched it with the sensitive eye of love, wondering what had brought it into her face. Now he knew the cause: her father's illness brought gloomy forebodings to her heart and made her anxious. "Does she ever think that I love her?" thought Dan, "and that I am only waiting for the proper time to tell her that my life is devoted to her?" He would have spoken that very day, but a sentiment of true delicacy restrained him. The feeling that closed his lips upon the subject for the present could not have existed in any but a chivalrous nature.