“Accidentally I have heard that Robin is sick and has sent for me. I must have slept for many hours, I think: not a heavy, stolid sleep, as I was vaguely conscious that Mattie stole in to look at me, and that Bell Verner, too, was here. But I did not realize it all until at last I woke and felt that I was better. The pain from the head was gone, and the soreness from the throat, leaving only a pleasant, tired feeling which I rather enjoy. “In the other room Mattie and Bell were talking, as it seemed, of me, for I heard Mattie say: “‘I wonder if she really does care about him?’ “‘I think she does,’ was Bell’s reply, ‘for I remember how annoyed she was when your brother teased her by ridiculing his peculiarities. Poor girl! I half suspect this has something to do with her illness. Mrs. Felton has confessed having told her what she knew.’ “‘She has? When?’ and Mattie seemed surprised. “‘Why,’ returned Bell, ‘that night I sat with Dora, Mrs. Felton, you know, was with me a part of the time, and once when Dora, in her disturbed sleep, was talking, she moaned about Dr. West and Anna. “Poor lamb, she’s dwellin’ on the young lady who died in this very room,” Felton said; and when I inquired what young lady, she told me all she knew, and more too, I think. Afterwards I asked Mrs. Stryker if she ever heard of Anna West, and she said, “Oh yes; she died just before we came here. Everybody was talking about it;” and then she told her story, which, of course, differed from Mrs. Felton’s about as much as is the difference in the social position of the two women,—Felton seeing things from her stand-point, and Mrs. Stryker repeating them from hers. She said Mrs. West used to give elegant parties, and Anna was always the star of the company. She was so beautiful and attractive that young men could not help admiring her, while Richard loved her very much, and nobody now believes—’ “I covered up my head at this point, for I would not listen to any more. After a little I heard some one coming up the stairs, not quietly, soberly, as Mattie and Bell had come, but noisily, rapidly, two steps at a time, trilling a few notes from some opera, and when the music ran high, absolutely breaking into a clear, decided whistle! I was amazed, particularly as the next moment Bell Verner said: “‘Hush-sh! Miss Freeman’s asleep. You’ll wake her with your boy-ways!’ “‘I don’t care!”’ and the whistler evidently cut a pirouette. ‘I’ll try to wake her, unless you tell me quick who is the handsomest man in town, the most _distingué_, for I met him just now in the street, and fell in love at once! Tall, broad-shouldered, with brown, dreamy eyes, and the whitest teeth! Tell me quick, Bell! You ought to know every marriageable man between the two poles, for here you’ve been out just as many years as you are older than I am, to wit, _ten_. Say, who was it?’