more Susan lay motionless— not asleep, but
strangely, pleasantly conscious of all the
small chamber and household sounds; the
fall of a cinder on the hearth, the fitful
singing of the half-empty kettle, the cattle tramping
out to field again after they had been
milked, the aged step on the creaking stair—
old Peggy's as she knew. It came to her
door, it stopped; the person outside listened
for a moment, and then lifted the wooden
latch, and looked in. The watcher by the
bedside arose, and went to her. Susan would
have been glad to see Peggy's face once more,
but was far too weak to turn, so she lay and
listened.

"How is she?  " whispered one trembling,
aged voice.

"Better," replied the other. " She's been
awake, and had a cup of tea. She'll  do
now."

"Has she asked after him?  "

"Hush! No; she has not spoken a word."

"Poor lass! poor lass!"

The door was shut. A weak feeling of
sorrow and self-pity came over Susan.
What was wrong? Whom had she loved? And
dawning, dawning slowly, rose the sun of her
former life, and all particulars were made
distinct to her. She felt that some sorrow
was coining to her, and cried over it before
she knew what it was, or had strength
enough to ask. In the dead of night,— and
she had never slept again,— she softly called to
the watcher, and asked,

"Who?  "

"Who what? " replied the woman, with
a conscious affright, ill-veiled by a poor
assumption of ease. "Lie still, there's a darling,
and go to sleep. Sleep's better for you
than all the doctor's stuff'."

"Who? " repeated Susan. "Something is
wrong. Who?"

"Oh, dear! " said the woman. " There's
nothing wrong. Willie has taken the turn,
and is doing nicely."

"Father?"

"Well! he's all right now," she answered,
looking another way, as if seeking for something.

"Then it's Michael! Oh, me! oh, me!"
She set up a succession of weak, plaintive,
hysterical cries before the nurse could pacify
her by declaring that Michael had been at
the house not three hours before to ask after
her, and looked as well and as hearty as ever
man did.

"And you heard of no harm to him since?"
inquired Susan.

"Bless the lass, no, for sure! I've ne'er
heard his name named since I saw him go
out of the yard as stout a man as ever trod
shoe-leather."

It was well, as the nurse said afterwards
to Peggy, that Susan had been so easily
pacified by the equivocating answer in
respect to her father. If she had pressed the
questions home in his case as she did in
Michael's, she would have learnt that he
was dead and buried more than a month
before. It was well, too, that in her weak
state of convalescence (which lasted long
after this first day of consciousness) her
perceptions were not sharp enough to observe
the sad change that had taken place in Willie,
His bodily strength returned, his appetite
was something enormous, but his eyes wandered
continually, his regard could not be
arrested, his speech became slow, impeded,
and incoherent. People began to say, that
the fever had taken away the little wit Willie
Dixon had ever possessed, and that they
feared that he would end in being a natural,
as they call an idiot in the Dales.

The habitual affection and obedience to
Susan lasted longer than any other feeling
that the boy had had previous to his illness;
and perhaps, this made her be the last to
perceive what every one else had long anticipated.
She felt the awakening rude when
it did come. It was in this wise.

One June evening she sat out of doors
under the yew-tree, knitting. She was
pale still from her recent illness; and her
languor joined to the fact of her black dress
made her look more than usually interesting.
She was no longer the buoyant, self-sufficient
Susan, equal to every occasion. The men
were bringing in the cows to be milked, and
Michael was about in the yard, giving orders
and directions with somewhat the air of a
master; for the farm belonged of right to
Willie, and Susan had succeeded to the
guardianship of her brother. Michael and
she were to be married as soon as she was
strong enough so, perhaps, his authoritative
manner was justified; but the labourers did
not like it, although they said little. They
remembered him a stripling on the farm,
knowing far less than they did, and often glad
to shelter his ignorance of all agricultural
matters behind their superior knowledge.
They would have taken orders from Susan
with far more willingness; nay! Willie himself
might have commanded them, and for
the old hereditary feeling towards the owners
of land they would have obeyed him with far
greater cordiality than they now showed to
Michael. But Susan was tired with even
three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to
notice, or to care, how things went on around
her; and Willie— poor Willie!— there he
stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously
grown and developed, to be sure, but
with restless eyes and ever-open mouth, and
every now and then setting up a strange kind
of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to
himself at the sound he had made. As the
two old labourers passed him, they looked
at each other ominously, and shook their heads.

"Willie, darling," said Susan, "don't make
that noise— it makes my head ache."

She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem
to hear; at any rate, he continued his howl
from time to time.