Nell was looking into the fire. "Where were you?" "House in Gowan Square, you know." "But who—nursed you?" "Those two poor things. I believe I led them an awful life—when I wasn’t off my head, too! I got so beastly sick of it—" He stopped abruptly. "Wasn’t there anyone—I mean—your aunt—" But her voice died on the word, as she pictured that lady, with her bangles, her chains, rattling in a sick room. A twinkle crept into his eye. "They hate sick rooms, and," gravely, "they excited me." She smiled. "So you just had those two nurses?" "And the doctor. I’ve got an awfully decent cousin—second cousin—down in Cornwall. She’s married—has two little girls—she’d have come up, but one of them was ill." She was silent. "I’m awfully strong, though," he protested anxiously. "Yesterday I whined to the doctor because I can’t do things same as I used to, yet, and he said, ’If you weren’t as strong as a horse, you’d have been dead twice over by now!’ He’s got Irish blood in his veins, I fancy!" She smiled absently. "Why aren’t you down in the country?" "I did go for a while, but you see—well, I’m going up to Cambridge as soon as Dr. Murray will let me, and I don’t want to get too far behind. So I’m attending classes and that sort of thing—as much as I’m allowed," with a rueful smile. "I think," said Nell, in her charming, softest voice, "you’re just a hero!" "A—a _what_? Good Heavens, what have I done? What have I been saying?" She turned suddenly, unheeding his ludicrous dismay, and stretching across, opened a little drawer in the table. She took out a bundle of photographs and handed him one. "That’s Acushla!" she said with a queer little breathless note in her voice. "I had to sell her." He glanced at her swiftly, and looked down at the photograph. Nell was making amends. In her rush of disgust at all the unkind things she had thought of him, in the pity that made her heart ache, she instinctively took him close as a friend. "That is the Colleen Bawn. She belonged to all of us. Dad bought her for fourteen pounds of an awful old pedler! She looked dreadful; you could count all her ribs—and dirty—and her tail! Well, it isn’t very grand there, but I don’t believe it had more than fourteen hairs in it when dad bought her—pound a hair, we always said. She was lame, and had a great bare patch on her right shoulder. But we fattened her up, and groomed her, and you wouldn’t believe how she could go! And jump! She’d jump anything, if she saw anything in front of her. That was her fad. She couldn’t stand anyone’s getting in front of her. She’s taken me clear over a wall that even Denis’s best hunter can’t manage without knocking down a stone or two. She’s rather big and bony, but there’s something rather fine about her head, I think." He nodded. "That’s a jolly colt!" "He is Sheila Pat’s. We haven’t sold him. We dared not. I believe it would have made her ill—really ill, I mean. The parting nearly did, in any case."