Letitia shook her head, “I hope the doctor was not mistaken,” she said. Her words threw a cold chill upon the household after the delight of the morning. But that was all. “Missis was always one to take the worst view of everything,” the cook remarked, to whom the undeniable proof of improvement which Mar had shown by swallowing his chicken broth was a proof that needed no confirmation. She sent up a little of the same broth to Mrs. Parke, hearing that she had a headache, and received a message back to the effect that the soup was very good, and that it must be kept always going, always ready, as the young gentleman was able to take it. “But I’ll try him with a bit of chicken to-morrow, no more slops,” said the cook. Thus, though she shook her head and owned that she was not herself so hopeful as Dr. Barker, Letitia sanctioned more or less the satisfaction of the household, and spent the afternoon in a legitimate way. She was frightfully pale, and complained of a headache, which she partly attributed to fatigue and partly to the sun. Yet she saw one or two people who called, and explained Mar’s condition to them: “presumably so much better,” she said, “but I fear, I fear the doctor takes too sanguine a view. A week hence, if all is well---- But,” she said, “the strain of suspense is terrible, almost worse than anything that is certain.” There were people who saw her that day who declared afterwards that they could not understand why it was said of Mrs. Parke that she had no heart. Why, if ever there was a woman who felt deeply, it was Mrs. Parke. The suspense about her poor nephew and his long illness had worn her to a shadow; it had nearly killed her--especially as, poor thing, she was not one who took a cheerful view. Letitia paid several visits in the evening to the sick room, or to the ante-room connected with it, after the night nurse had begun her duty. The other attendant was not in sympathy with the mistress of the house: but she stood with the night nurse at the door of the room and peered at Mar, and they mutually shook their heads and gave each other meaning looks. “I wish I could see him with Nurse Robinson’s eyes,” the attendant said, and Mrs. Parke replied with a sigh that she hoped most earnestly the doctor was not mistaken. “For I see no difference, nurse.” “And neither do I, ma’am,” said the gloomy woman. She paused for a moment, and then she added in a whisper, “I’ve no business to interfere, but I can’t bear to see you looking so pale. I do wish, Mrs. Parke, that you would go to bed.” “I thought the same of you, nurse,” said Mrs. Parke, “indeed I wanted to offer to sit up half the night to let you have a little rest.” “Thank you very much, but I must keep to my post,” the woman said.