To find himself sitting at the table alone with Bertha, in her new mood,--Bertha quiet and beautiful,--was a moving experience to him. It was as if they two must have sat there every day for years, and had the prospect of sitting so together indefinitely. It was the very simplicity and naturalness of it all which stirred him most. Her old vivid gayety was missing; she did not laugh once, but her smile was very sweet. They talked principally of the children, and of the common things about them, but there was never a word which did not seem a thing to be cherished and remembered. After a while the children were brought down, and she took Meg upon her knee, and Jack leaned against her while she told Tredennis what they had been doing, and the sun creeping through the vines touched her hair and the child's and made a picture of them. When she went upstairs she took Meg with her, holding her little hand and talking to her in pretty maternal fashion; and, after the two had vanished, Tredennis found it necessary to pull himself together with a strong effort, that he might prove himself equal to the conversational demands made upon him by Master Jack, who had remained behind. "I will go and see Janey again," she had said. "And then, perhaps, you will pay her a visit." When he went up, a quarter of an hour later, he found his small favorite touchingly glad to see him. The fever from which she had been suffering for several days had left her languid and perishable-looking, but she roused wonderfully at the sight of him, and when he seated himself at her bedside regarded him with adoring admiration, finally expressing her innocent conviction that he had grown very much since their last meeting. "But it doesn't matter," she hastened to assure him, "because I don't mind it, and mamma doesn't, either." When, in the course of the morning, Doctor Wentworth arrived, he discovered him still sitting by the bedside, only Janey had crept close to him and fallen asleep, clasping both her small hands about his large one, and laying her face upon his palm. "What!" said the doctor. "Can you do that sort of thing?" "I don't know," answered Tredennis, slowly. "I never did it before." He looked down at the small, frail creature, and the color showed itself under his bronzed skin. "I think she's rather fond of me--or something," he added with _naïveté_, "and I like it." "She likes it, that's evident," said the doctor. He turned away to have an interview with Bertha, whom he took to the window at the opposite end of the room, and after it was over they came back together. "She is not so ill as she was yesterday," he said; "and she was not so ill then as you thought her." He turned and looked at Bertha herself. "She doesn't need as much care now as you do," he said, "that's my impression. What have you been doing with yourself?" "Taking care of her," she answered, "since she began to complain of not feeling well."