She threw off her bonnet, and let the cloak slip from her shoulders, displaying her evening attire, for she had dressed before she came out: a silk, so light as to look almost white, that stood on end with richness and rustled as she walked; the dazzling necklace, given by Captain Davenal, on her white neck; a dewdropped pink rose in her gleaming hair. Utterly unaccordant looked she with the chamber of the dying, as she stepped into the other room. Dr. Davenal's eyes were fixed on her for a moment in simple wonder, as if he saw a vision. Then he recognised her, and held out his hand, a glad look pervading his countenance. "Well, Uncle Richard! I am so rejoiced that you are getting better. You'll come and dance at our housewarming yet." "Are you going to hold one?" asked the doctor, as he held her hand in his, and gazed up at her beauty. "Mark and I are thinking of it. We can do everything, you know, now that that money's coming to me." "Ah," said the doctor, "it's about that money I want to talk to you. Sit down, Caroline. How smart you are, my dear!" "Nay, I think it's you who are smart uncle," she returned with a gay laugh. "So it has come into use at last!" Caroline touched the dressing-gown as she spoke. There had always been a joke about this dressing-gown. A patient of the doctor's, as fanciful as Lady Oswald and nearly as old, had made it with her own hands and sent it to him. It had remained unused. For one thing, the doctor was too plain in his habits and too busy a man to require a dressing-gown at all; for another he had looked upon the garment as extravagantly fine. "Yes," said he, in answer to Caroline's remark, "I have found it useful today. It is very warm and comfortable. Caroline, I have been talking again to Mark about the money." "Well, uncle?" "I don't know that it is well. Mark does not appear inclined to make me any promise that it shall be settled upon you when it comes. I urged it upon him very strongly this afternoon, and he answered me in his light careless manner, 'Of course. O yes doctor, I'll remember;' but he did not give a specific promise; whether by accident or design, I cannot say. So I told him to send you down to me." "Yes, uncle," she said, thinking more of the weakness of the voice to which she was listening, than of the import of the words. "This money must be settled upon you, Caroline, the instant that you touch it. It is essential that a married woman should, if possible, have some settlement. If I recover, I shall take care that this is so settled, but----" "_If_ you recover!" she interrupted. "Why, Uncle Richard, you are getting well as fast as you can. Mark says so. You are sitting up!" "True; I am sitting up; and I could not have sat up two or three days ago. Still, I am not sure about the getting well." "But Mark says so; he says you are," reiterated Caroline.