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Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him.

“Married!” she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,–“married!”

“Yes,” replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, “married.”

Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, “I guess you better go now. Good-day.”

She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn’t much chance to talk with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better.

But as Mary sat down by her patient’s bed, her face settled into sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung her way, she marveled at it.

The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was “all beat out,” for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to have an early supper at five.

“There, Mary Dunbar!” cried she; “I said I’d do it, an’ I have. There ain’t a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an’ folks that want you to go nussin’ have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very afternoon, ‘I’ll be whipped if I don’t git in an’ see what’s goin’ on!’ There’s some will have it Johnnie’s got well, an’ drove away without saying good-by to his own folks, an’ some say he ain’t likely to live, an’ there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the childern, they’ve got an idea suthin’ ‘s been done to uncle Johnnie, an’ you can’t mention him but they cry.”

Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. “I guess I wouldn’t mention him, then,” said she.

A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming.

“I laughed so,” he said chokingly. “She always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don’t know what it was,–but I can move!”

He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes.

“I’ll go and tell Mattie,” said she, turning toward the door. “You want to see her?”

“For God’s sake, no! not till I’m on my feet.” He was still laughing. “I guess I can get up to-morrow.”

Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her.

“I guess you better not see him to-night,” she said. “You can come in to-morrer. I shouldn’t wonder if he’d be up then.”

“I told Adam”–began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little arm, and held it there.

“I’d rather talk to-morrer,” said she gently. “Don’t you come in before ‘leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your brother’ll be gettin’ away before long.” She opened the outer door, and Mattie had no volition but to go. “It’s a nice night, ain’t it?” called Mary cheerfully, after her. “Seems as if there never was so many stars.”

Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and exactitude prepared her patient’s supper. He was sitting upright, bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize.