say what I think to my father and to our poor neighbors hereabouts--and I can't alter my ways at a moment's notice. I own it when I like people; and I own it when I don't. I have been looking at you while you were asleep; and I have read your face as I might read a book. There are signs of sorrow on your forehead and your lips which it is strange to see in so young a face as yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with many questions about yourself when we become better acquainted with each other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as nurse. Are your pillows comfortable? I can see they want shaking up. Shall I send for Peter to raise you? I am unhappily not strong enough to be able to help you in that way. No? You are able to raise yourself? Wait a little. There! Now lie back--and tell me if I know how to establish the right sort of sympathy between a tumbled pillow and a weary head." She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I was, that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected me almost with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to help her with the pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It felt so cold and so thin, that even the momentary contact with it startled me. I tried vainly to see her face, now that it was more within reach of my range of view. The merciless darkness kept it as complete a mystery as ever. Had my curiosity escaped her notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words told me plainly that I had been discovered. "You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my hand warned you not to try again? I felt that it startled you when you touched it just now." Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such fearless candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my side. I owned the truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive me. She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed.