Day by day I saw the little, wistful face relaxing from the hard-knot expression, so to speak, of sour and serious suffering, and assuming something akin to baby joyousness, and the small, warped figure, so low that it walked under my dropped and level hand, acquiring security of step and erectness of bearing. I knew little of the treatment required for spinal disease, but common-sense taught me that, in order to effect a cure, the vertebral column must be relieved as much as possible from pressure, and allowed to rest. So I persuaded him to lie down a great part of the time, and contrived for him a little sustaining brace to relieve him when he walked. I fed him carefully; I bathed him tenderly, and robbed his weary, aching limbs to rest, so that before many weeks the change was surprising, and the success of my treatment evident to all who saw him--the comprehensive "all" being myself and two attendants. Dr. Englehart had been suggested in the beginning by Mrs. Clayton, as his medical attendant, but rejected by me with a shudder, that seemed conclusive; yet one evening, unsummoned by me, and as far as I knew by any other, he walked calmly into my apartment, ostensibly to see the little invalid--his charge as well as mine. For a moment the extravagant idea possessed me that, in spite of appearances, I had done this man injustice, and that he came in reality for humane purposes alone; wore his disguise for these. This delusion was soon dissipated, as with audacity (no doubt characteristic, though not before evidenced to me), he seated himself complacently and uninvited, and, disposing of his hat and stick, settled himself down for a _tete-a-tete_, an affair which, if medical, usually partakes of the confidential. "Your little _protege_, Miss Monfort," he said, huskily, "seems to be a serious sufferer," and for a moment dropping his accent while he rubbed his gloved hands together as with an ill-repressed self-gratification; "come, tell me now what you are doing for his benefit," again artistically assuming a foreign accentuation. In a few words I described my course of treatment and its success. "All very well," he responded, hoarsely, "as far as it goes; but I am convinced that much severer treatment will he necessaire--" "I think not," I replied, curtly; "and certainly nothing of the kind will be permitted by me while I have charge of this poor infant." "A few leetle pills, then, for both mother and child;" he suggested, humbly. "You are mistaken if you imagine any relationship to exist between Ernie and myself," I answered, calmly, never dreaming at the moment of covert or intended insult. "I might as well inform you at once, that I am Miss, not Mrs. Monfort; you should he guarded how you make mistakes of that nature." And my eye flashed fire, I felt, for I now heard him chuckling low in the shadow, in which he so carefully concealed himself.