"Tell your wife that you are both of you quite right, and that I am right also. Just hunt up my trousers, will you? I want my pocket-book. If I have to sign anything before anybody--bring him here. I don't care what you do, so you get it. There, on that card you have it all--my full name and all that, you know." David tried to eat what Sally prepared for him, using his unbound hand; but his egg was hard, his coffee thick and boiled. He could not drink it very well for his head was too low, and he could not raise himself, so he lay silent and uncomfortable, watching her move about his rooms, wearing her great black sunbonnet. She appeared kindly and pleasant when he could see her face, which was thin and very much lined, but motherly and good. He fell in the way of calling her "Aunt Sally" as others did, and this seemed to please her. She treated him as if he were a big boy who did not know what was good for himself. She called all the green blossoming things with which Cassandra had adorned the cabin, "trash," and asked who had "toted hit thar." Waiting and listening, sure Cassandra would not leave him all day without coming to him, even though Aunt Sally had taken him in charge, David's mind was full of her. If he closed his eyes, he saw her. If he opened them and watched Sally's meagre form and black sunbonnet moving about, he thought what it might be to see Cassandra there. He could not and would not look at the future. The picture Hoke Belew had summoned up when he had suggested the taking of Cassandra away among people alien to her, he put from him. He would not see it nor think of it. The present was his, and it was all he had, perhaps all he ever would have; and now he would not allow one little joy of it to escape him. He would be greedy of it and have all the gladness of the moments as they came. He could see her down below making ready for their visitors, and he knew she would not come until the last task was done, but meantime his patience was wearing away. Aunt Sally finished her work, and David could see her from where he lay, seated in the doorway with her pipe, looking out on the gently falling rain. Without, all was very peaceful; only within himself was turmoil and impatience. But he knew that to remain calm and unmoved was to keep back his fever and hasten recuperation, so he closed his eyes and tried to live for the moment in the remembrance of that awakening when he had found her kneeling at his side. Thus he dropped to sleep, and again, when he awoke, he found Cassandra there as if in answer to his silent call. She was seated quietly sewing, as if it were no unusual thing for her to visit him thus, and when his earnest gaze caused her to look up, she only smiled without perturbation and came to him. "I sent Aunt Sally down to see mother while I could stay by you and do for you a little," she said.