"Well, he's not well, and I don't like it, dear,
you know. And you feel for him, I'm sure you
do. If I could find a cushion, now——"

She was looking for one in a moment, and
found one. "I am sure," she said, wistfully,
"I could be useful in some way. Is there nothing
I could do?"

"I'm sure you could," said the captain. "Ah,
there's Gilpin. I knew he'd come."

Gilpin, the friendly doctor, went in, drew
aside the curtains, held the light close to that
pale face, did the customary "feeling," and
touching, and pressing, satisfied himself, and
then came into the middle of the room. The
captain and the old porter waited eagerly and
anxiously to hear his report.

"Why, this is fever—nervous fever," he said,
"and he must have had it on him this week
past. How did you let him go so far?"

"We could do nothing with him," said the
porter. " He never looks after himself. I saw
it coming on him; but you might as well talk
to the wind as to him."

"Nervous fever," said the captain, anxiously.
"That's a bad sort of thing—eh, doctor? What
do you say?"

"Can't say anything now, captain," said the
doctor, writing. " I should have seen him
before now. But we must only try and patch it
up as well as we can." He finished the
prescription. " You must get a nurse," he said,
"of course. This is a very ticklish matter,
Diamond, I tell you plainly. Is that a nurse in
the next room?"

"No, no. God bless me!"—inventing, with
extraordinary readiness, a legend to cover his
niece's situation—" it's only a little maid of
ours, whom, as we were going the same way,
you know, I thought I might drop at a shop."
For the captain, though he would have scorned
a falsehood for any ends of his own, was
always ready in the cause of affection and
chivalry with the most fertile invention.

"Now see, my friend," said Gilpin, holding
out the wet prescription. " Get this made up,
get the nurse, and with this he may do very well
for the next couple of days. The fact is, I must
go down to the south to-morrow, and can't get
back for some time."

"My goodness!" said the captain, aghast, as
if his departure withdrew all medical aid from
the world; " you won't throw us over, Gilpin?"

"I'll tell you," said the doctor, rising. "If
he should get suddenly bad—but I don't think
he will—send to Dennison, Sir Duncan Dennison,
the Queen's physician. There is only one
man in London knows nervous fevers, and that's
Dennison. It's miraculous! If you can't get
Dennison—and it's very likely you won't—why
you must try Stony, or some of the rest."

The doctor was going. " My dear Gilpin,"
said the captain, busy with the purse, " how
kind of you—how good of you!"

"Nonsense! my friend," said the doctor,
putting back the purse. " What are you at?
All in good time."

A muffled little figure went hurriedly to the
window as they passed through the next room
—the figure of the little maid, whom the captain
was bringing to a shop. He looked sharply
at her, and went away. That, indeed, proved
the beginning of a terrible nervous fever which
seized on Mr. Tillotson. For hours he was
tossing and writhing in its grasp. With difficulty
Captain Diamond brought away his niece,
and quietly put her in the cab, with all sorts of
assurances. The declarations he put into the
doctor's mouth—with a most delicate end—
would have astounded that practitioner. "On
my oath, my dearest little girl, he said so.
Be up and down at his work the day after
tomorrow, or the next day, at furthest. On my
oath, yes!" But this romance was all superfluous,
for the supposed maid had been at the
door, and heard the true verdict.

Yet, for the case of a person who was to
recover and be at his work on the day after
tomorrow, the captain was singularly nervous and
anxious. When they came down to breakfast,
they found that he was already gone, having left
word that he would be back " soon." He did
not return until nearly four; the little girl had
an anxious, restless time, running to the window.

The elder Miss Diamond, in the drawing-room,
talked very confidently to comfort her. '"He is
strong," she said, " and is sure to get over it.
Men always get over these things."

"I hope he will," said the other, devoutly,
still looking out of the window, "for the dear
captain's sake."

"Yes," said the elder girl, gravely; "uncle
Diamond would grieve dreadfully."

But, in the bedroom, the grim Martha
Malcolm had a different sort of comfort. " What
a pother," she said; " he's neither kith nor kin
to any of us, and must bear his trials like any
other man. The whole house turned upside down,
the captain gone without his breakfast, all for a
counting-house fellow, that has money enough
to buy friends ready made. What work it is!"

"Ah, but, Martha, think of the poor creature
lying there, without a soul to go near him! If
you knew his story, how he has suffered——"

"And why didn't he make friends of his
Mammon? Ah, I see it's wasting time talking
to you, Miss Alice. It's ill talking to those as
won't care to listen, and for good reasons of
their own."

The colour rose to the cheeks of the little
pale girl, but she said nothing. She heard the
voice of the captain below, and ran down. There
was a change in his face to the greatest
cheerfulness and heartiness.

"We're getting along," he said; " rallying
like a house afire. Oh, he'll be as well as a
roach; let me see," the captain, said, fixing on
a date carefully—" by next Friday. Then his
face (as if a spring had relaxed) suddenly fell
into a very mournful expression, quite inconsistent
with such good news.

"Ah, you are only telling me this, uncle,"
she said, impatiently. " I know he is bad."

"On my solemn oath," the captain was
beginning.