But thinking was hard and sleepy work, and he soon dropped off again. When he woke, the setting sun was sending rays through the closed blinds, and his nurse was standing by the bed with a gentleman who was engaged in feeling his pulse. "Well, my man, you have come out on the right side this time," said the doctor, cheerfully. "You must have a pretty good constitution. I don't see anything now to hinder you getting well directly." CHAPTER VIII. _NEWS AND PLANS._ FOR several days Caspar lay in Deborah Whitecar's best bed, very weak and languid and comfortable, and decidedly indisposed to any greater mental or physical exertion than that of taking his broth and answering the doctor's questions, or speculating idly on the bit of landscape and river which he could see out of his window. Then he began to recover rapidly, to feel a profound interest in the dinner-hour, to sit up while his bed was made, and at last, to Kitty's great delight, to be dressed and walk to the window. His mind was now quite clear as to all that had happened up to the time when Recompense Joake visited him in his room and showed him how he might escape. After that, everything was in a fog. He dimly remembered hearing voices about him, especially Kitty's, and being well cared for, but that was all. His nurse, though kindness itself, was very peremptory and would not allow him to talk, and even Kitty would only answer all his inquiries by laying her small finger on her lip, and, if he persisted, by vanishing from the room. One day, he was sitting by his window looking out at the winding river and the pretty village, of which he could see a bit on the other side. He was feeling more than commonly downhearted and lonely. He had never been seriously ill in all his life before; he did not know what to make of the weakness which oppressed him; and, like most men under similar circumstances, he thought he should never be any better. He had heard no public news, and nobody had given him a hint as to what was to be done with him. In this mournful case he was sitting, leaning both elbows on the window-sill with his head on his hands, when he was aroused by a cheerful voice behind him: "Well, this is an improvement on the last time I saw you, but you would hardly handle a sledge as well as at our first meeting." Caspar looked round to see a gentleman whose face he seemed dimly to remember, though he could not at first tell where they had met. "You are in a fog, I see," said the stranger, smiling. "Don't you remember the Mischianza and the assistant Major André found for you?" "And you are Jonathan Elmer?" said Caspar, shaking the hand the other held out to him. "Yes, and your friend Kitty's father. I little thought, when we parted in Philadelphia that night, how we should meet again. How are you feeling?" "Very much better, thank you, if only I could gain strength."