"My poor dear," said the nurse, touched, "I didn't know, you know, or I wouldn't. There! don't think about it now, but get up, like a good girl, and wash and dress yourself, and have your breakfast comfortable. Things won't be always like this, you know." Mollie looked wistfully at her, but Mrs. Sharpe wasn't going to commit herself, with no certainty but that listening ears were at the door. She assisted the poor prisoner with her toilet, combed out and curled the beautiful, abundant hair, and made her as pretty as a picture. "She's lost her rosy cheeks, and is failed away to nothing," mused the nurse. "Only for that, she'd be the loveliest thing the sun shines on." "And now you're fixed, my pretty dear," said Mrs. Sharpe, "I'll go down and get your breakfast. Nobody ever feels right in the morning on an empty stomach." Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Sharpe found things in a lively state of preparation--coffee boiling, steak broiling, toast making, and muffins baking. Old Sally, in a state threatening spontaneous combustion, bent over the fire, and Mrs. Oleander, in her rocking-chair, superintended. "Are you only getting up now?" asked the doctor's mother, suspiciously. "Been up these two hours, ma'am," responded Mrs. Sharpe. "I tidied up myself and my room, and then tidied up Miss Dane and her'n. I came down to fetch up her breakfast." "It's all ready," said Sally. "Fetch along your tray." So Susan Sharpe fetched along her tray, and received a bountiful supply of coffee and toast, and steak and muffins. "There's nothing like plenty of good victuals for curing the vapors," observed Sally, sagely. "You make the young woman eat this, Mrs. Sharpe, and she'll feel better, you'll see." Mrs. Sharpe smiled, as she bore off her burden, at the idea Sally must have of one little girl's appetite. She found Mollie sitting at the window gazing at the sea, sparkling as if sown with stars, in the morning sunshine. "Is it not beautiful?" she said, turning to the nurse. "Oh, if I were only free once more--free to have a plunge in that snow-white surf--free to have a breezy run along that delightful beach this magnificent morning?" Mrs. Sharpe set down her tray, looked cautiously around her, lowered her voice, fixed her green-spectacled eyes meaningly on Mollie's face, and uttered these remarkable words: "Wait! You may be free before long!" "What do you mean?" cried Mollie, starting violently. "Hush! 'Sh! 'sh!" laying her hand over the girl's mouth. "Not a word. Walls have ears, in prisons. Take your breakfast, miss," raising her voice. "It will do you no good, acting ugly and not eating." For the stairs had creaked under a cautious, ascending footstep, and Mrs. Sharpe had heard that creak. So, too, had Mollie this time; and she turned her shining eyes in eloquent silence to Mrs. Sharpe, and Mrs. Sharpe had nodded, and smiled, and grimaced toward the door in a way that spoke volumes.