She came still closer to where I was sitting, and her bright good face was troubled. "Miss Hester, my darling, I want to consult you," said Alice, and I thought I saw a tear trembling in her eye. "I am afraid your papa is ill. I am afraid he is very bad. The doctor comes and goes, and he never lets you know; and I have said to myself this three months back: 'it's cruel to keep it from her--the longer she is of knowing the worse it will be.' And now, dear, I've taken heart and come myself to tell you. He's very bad, Miss Hester, he has a deal of trouble; and it'll come hard--hard upon you." I felt that my face was quite blanched and white. What a contrast was this to the terror of my own thoughts! I shrank within myself with a guilty consciousness, that while I had been running in these charmed ways, my father had suffered in secret, making no sign. I cannot say I was startled--Alice's words fell upon me with a dull heavy pang--I felt as if a blow which had long been hanging over me had fallen at last. "But Alice, Alice, I see no change in him," cried I, for a moment struggling against the truth. "If you went to him as I sometimes go, you would see a change, Miss Hester," said Alice; "it is not your fault, dear. Well I know that--but the light in his eye and the color in his cheek--hush--that's the hectic, darling, you've heard of that," and Alice turned to me a glance of fright, and sunk her voice to a whisper, as if this was some deadly enemy lurking close at hand. And fever and faintness came upon me as she spoke. I rose and threw up the window for a moment's breath, and then I turned to Alice, and cried upon her shoulder and asked her what I was to do--what I was to do? With her kind hand upon my head, and her kind voice blessing her "dear child," Alice soothed and calmed me--and the tears gave me some relief, and I gradually composed myself. "Do you think he will let me nurse him, Alice? He told me he was ill long ago, but I persuaded myself he was mistaken; and you think he is very bad--in great pain? oh! do you think he will let me nurse him, Alice?" "I cannot tell. Miss Hester," said Alice, "but, dear, you must try--did he tell you he was ill?--and I was doing him wrong, thinking he was too proud to let his own child see him in weakness: oh, we're hard judges, every one of us. When was it, dear?" "In spring, a long time ago; and we were not quite friends then," said I. "I thought he was cruel; he spoke to me about--about--I mean he told me that I must soon be left alone, and that he wanted to find some one to take care of me. I cannot tell you about it, Alice; and I refused--I said no to my father; and we have never been very good friends since then." "Do you mean that your papa wanted you to marry, Miss Hester?" asked Alice.