"To write of you, papa?" she repeated in a faltering tone. But she need not have asked the question--its meaning had only too surely penetrated to her. "Should the worst have happened." "Oh, but--papa--you are getting better!" She checked the wailing tone; she remembered how necessary, as she had been warned, was calmness in that room; she remembered her promise to maintain it. She pressed her hands upon her bosom and remained still. "I will take that draught now, Sara, if you will pour it out." She rose from her seat, undid the paper, poured the contents of the small bottle into the glass, and handed it to him. The doctor drank it, and gave her back the glass with a smile. "Not one of those clever fellows thought of ordering me this; yet it's the best thing for anybody suffering as I am. Ah! they have got something to learn yet. I don't know how they'll get on without me?" "Papa, you may get well yet!" she interrupted; anti she _could not_ prevent the anguished sound with which the words were spoken. He turned and looked at her; he seemed to have fallen into a momentary reverie. But he made no direct answer. "Can you draw the table away, Sara? I don't want it so close now. Gently; take care of the lamp." "Where shall I put this, papa?" she asked, referring to the letter. "In my desk in the next room. You'll know where to find it in case of need. My keys are here, on the mantelpiece." She stopped to ask one question which seemed to be wrung from her in her pain. "Is it to go all the same if you get better, papa?" "No. Not if I get better." Passing into the other room, which was lighted only by the fire, she drew the desk from underneath the table, knelt down, unlocked it, and put in the letter. It was addressed: "For my son, Edward Davenal." Sara was locking the desk again, when some one entered the room and came round the table to where she knelt. "My goodness! are you saying your prayers?" Wrapped in silks and ermine, her lovely face peeping out from a charming pink bonnet, was Mrs. Cray. The doctor had expressed a wish to Mark Cray that afternoon that Caroline would come to him, and Mark had delivered the message when he got home. "Mark says Uncle Richard wants to see me," she explained, "so I thought I'd run down at once. I can't stop; Berry and another friend or two are going to dine with us. I am so delighted to hear of the improvement in Uncle Richard! Mark says the danger is quite over." "If I could but be sure it was!" was Sara's answer. "There you are, with your doubts and fears! Never was anybody like you, Sara. Don't I tell you Mark says it is? Yes, I'll take my cloak off for the few minutes that I stop."