Nobody

"Don't!" said Lois languidly.

"Why?"

"You had better not."

"But why not? You are ungrateful, it seems to me, if you don't likehim."

"I like him," said Lois slowly; "but he belongs to a different worldfrom ours. The worlds can't come together; so it is best not to likehim too much."

"How do you mean, a different world?"

"O, he's different, Madge! All his thoughts and ways and associationsare unlike ours – a great way off from ours; and must be. It is best asI said. I guess it is best not to like anybody too much."

With which oracular and superhumanly wise utterance Lois closed hereyes softly again. Madge, provoked, was about to carry on thediscussion, when, noticing how pale the cheek was which lay against thecrimson chair cushion, and how very delicate the lines of the face, shethought better of it and was silent. A while later, however, when shehad brought Lois a cup of gruel and biscuit, she broke out on a newtheme.

"What a thing it is, that some people should have so much silver, andother people so little!"

"What silver are you thinking of?"

"Why, Mrs. Wishart's, to be sure. Who's else? I never saw anything likeit, out of Aladdin's cave. Great urns, and salvers, and cream-jugs, andsugar-bowls, and cake-baskets, and pitchers, and salt-cellars. Thesalt-cellars were lined with something yellow, or washed, to hinder thestaining, I suppose."

"Gold," said Lois.

"Gold?"

"Yes. Plated with gold."

"Well I never saw anything like the sideboard down-stairs; thesideboard and the tea-table. It is funny, Lois, as I said, why someshould have so much, and others so little."

"We, you mean? What should we do with a load of silver?"

"I wish I had it, and then you'd see! You should have a silk dress, tobegin with, and so should I."

"Never mind," said Lois, letting her eyelids fall again with anexpression of supreme content, having finished her gruel. "There arecompensations, Madge."

"Compensations! What compensations? We are hardly respectably dressed, you and I, for this place."

"Never mind!" said Lois again. "If you had been sick as I was, and inthat place, and among those people, you would know something."

"What should I know?"

"How delightful this chair is; – and how good that gruel, out of a chinacup; – and how delicious all this luxury! Mrs. Wishart isn't as rich asI am to-night."

"The difference is, she can keep it, and you cannot, you poor child!"

"O yes, I can keep it," said Lois, in the slow, happy accent with whichshe said everything to-night; – "I can keep the remembrance of it, andthe good of it. When I get back to my work, I shall not want it."

"Your work!" said Madge.

"Yes."

"Esterbrooke!"

"Yes, if they want me."

"You are never going back to that place!" exclaimed Madgeenergetically. "Never! not with my good leave. Bury yourself in thatwild country, and kill yourself with hard work! Not if I know it."

"If that is the work given me," said Lois, in the same calm voice.

"They want somebody there, badly; and I have made a beginning."

"A nice beginning! – almost killed yourself. Now, Lois, don't thinkabout anything! Do you know, Mrs. Wishart says you are the handsomestgirl she ever saw!"

"That's a mistake. I know several much handsomer."

"She tried to make Mr. Dillwyn say so too; and he wouldn't."

"Naturally."

"It was funny to hear them; she tried to drive him up to the point, andhe wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, butalways managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him witha point-blank question."

"What did he do then?"

"Said what you said; that he had seen women who would be calledhandsomer."

The conversation dropped here, for Lois made no reply, and Madgerecollected she had talked enough.

CHAPTER XL

ATTENTIONS

It was days before Lois went down-stairs. She seemed indeed to be in nohurry. Her room was luxuriously comfortable; Madge tended her there, and Mrs. Wishart visited her; and Lois sat in her great easy-chair, andrested, and devoured the delicate meals that were brought her; and thecolour began gently to come back to her face, in the imperceptiblefashion in which a white Van Thol tulip takes on its hues of crimson.She began to read a little; but she did not care to go down-stairs.Madge told her everything that went on; who came, and what was said byone and another. Mr. Dillwyn's name was of very frequent occurrence.

"He's a real nice man!" said Madge enthusiastically.

"Madge, Madge, Madge! – you mustn't speak so," said Lois. "You must notsay 'real nice.'"

"I don't, down-stairs," said Madge, laughing. "It was only to you. Itis more expressive, Lois, sometimes, to speak wrong than to speakright."

"Do not speak so expressively, then."

"But I must, when I am speaking of Mr. Dillwyn. I never saw anybody sonice. He is teaching me to play chess, Lois, and it is such fun."

"It seems to me he comes here very often."

"He does; he is an old friend of Mrs. Wishart's, and she is as glad tosee him as I am."

"Don't be too glad, Madge. I do not like to hear you speak so."