But the worst that happened was a sharp attack of rheumatic fever for Amos, following upon a kind of fainting fit, which seized him just as he delivered up his letters to the clerks in the travelling post-office at Norton Junction. He was promptly carried to the Norton Cottage Hospital; and there Joanna found him the following afternoon; and she wept tears of mingled joy and sorrow as she sat at his bedside and listened to the tale of his remarkable adventures. "We shall never leave off talkin' of them," he said with a smile, "when I come home to you and Charlotte." It was six weeks before he came home. The doctors told him he was quite well again and might resume his work, but he must take care of himself. Amos knew this even better than they did. The old buoyant strength, the careless, untiring delight with which he had been wont to stride along the old familiar roads, were gone for ever. He loved them as much as ever; but he did not go out of his way now to look into some secluded dingle, and he could not afford to pause and listen to any strange cry in the wintry woods. It was as much as he could do to accomplish his task. He was even compelled to hire a substitute when the snow lay heavy on the road, or when torrents of rain were falling. He had paid a heavy price for saving the life of a tramp's child. No one had thanked him for it; and he had not even the satisfaction of knowing whom or where the little creature was. When he first called at Sutton Hall after his long illness, the servants told him how the young squire had made a runaway match, much to his father's displeasure. The young squire and his bride had gone to foreign parts, nobody knew where; and his father refused to continue his allowance, though he could not cut off the entail. This was the matter of life or death; and Amos was not sure that he would have driven off to Norton in his wet clothes if he had known the secret of the young squire's anxiety. "But what's done is done," said Amos to himself; "and I thought I was doin' what the Lord set for me." As time went on it became the custom for Joanna to take her husband's bags, at least every other day, and always in bad weather. The postmaster, who was friendly to them both, winked at this irregularity; and none of the great people on the road complained of it. It was little to Joanna to walk the seven miles out and back again; and the load was never very heavy. But the long wait of seven or eight hours at the farthest village was a severe trial to her. She took some sewing or knitting; but her heart was at home, wondering how Amos and Charlotte were going on, and longing after her accustomed work in the house and the garden. Her home seemed, if possible, to grow dearer to her every day; and her love was heightened by these enforced absences. There was no other real place in the world to her; it was her world. The joy of going back to it, and to those who lived in it, was the deepest earthly joy her soul could feel.