"Impossible!" said Alison, staring. "By no means. You are uneasy, and think I am not capable of caring for my father." "Well, I can't help it, old fellow," said Alison. "I was thinking something of the kind. You see a regular old country doctor--" "Has not half the experience of a young man in a large hospital," said Neil, interrupting him and speaking now in a quite confident manner. "We have had many such cases as this, and I have helped to treat them." "Yes, but--" "Pray try and have a little confidence in me, old fellow. I am sure you do not mean it, but you are making my task much harder." "Oh, I don't want to do that, but you see I can't help looking at you as my brother." "Never cease to, pray. Now go and lie down for a few hours. Yes," he continued, as Alison hesitated, "I wish it. I desire it. I will call you about four." "Oh, very well, if I must, I must," said Alison rather sulkily. Then, as if ashamed of the tone he had taken, "All right. Be sure and call me then." He crossed to the bed again, stood looking down at the sleeping face, and returned. "I say," he whispered, "what a change it seems! Only this morning talking to us as he did, and now helpless like that." "Yes; it is terrible how prostrate an accident renders a man." "Did--did he say anything to you about--about marriage?" Neil started and looked sharply at his brother, who had faltered as he spoke. "Yes, but there is no occasion to discuss that now." "No, I suppose not, but he was wonderfully set upon our being regularly engaged to those two girls. Don't seem natural for that sort of thing to be settled for you downright without your being consulted. It's just as if you were a royal personage." "My dear Alison, is this a time for such a subject to be discussed? Pray go now." "Oh, very well--till four o'clock, then." The young man left the room, and Neil sat down to think, after a closer examination of his father's state. For Alison's words had started a current of thought which soon startled him by its intensity, as it raised up the calm, pale face of one who had constantly been at his side in cases of emergency--one who was always tenderly sensitive and ready to suffer with those who suffered, whose voice had a sweet, sympathetic ring as she spoke words of encouragement or consolation to the agony-wrung patient, but who could be firm as a rock at times, when a sufferer's life depended upon the strength of mind and nerve of the attendant. Always that face, looking with calm, deep, thoughtful eyes into his, but with no heightening of colour, no tremor in the sensitive nerves of the smooth, high temples; and as he sat there thinking, she seemed to him one whom no words of man, however earnest and impassioned, could stir, certainly not such words as he could speak.