with; she loved the child. And he, who (except from his father) had
never known any love before, took it with a wondering complacency,
half funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her
wistfully, "Oh, it's so nice to be ill!" And once, the first time she
untied his right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it
around her neck, whispering, "You are very good to me, mother."
Christian crept away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he
was so weak still; but she stole aside into the oriel window, her
heart full almost to bursting.

After that he always called her "mother."

The other two children she scarcely ever saw. The need for keeping
Arthur quiet was so vital, that of course they were not admitted to his
room, and she herself rarely left it. Dim and far away seemed all the
world, and especially her own poor life, whether happy or miserable,
compared with that frail existence, which hung almost upon a thread.

At last the medical opinion was given that little Arthur might, with
great care and incessant watching ("which it is plain he will have, Mrs.
Grey," added the old doctor, bowing and smiling), grow up to be a man
yet.

When Dr. Anstruther said this, Christian felt as if the whole world had
brightened.

She had no one to tell her joy to, for Dr. Grey was out, but she stood in
her familiar retreat at the window--oh, what that window could have
revealed of the last few weeks!--and her tears, long dried up, poured
down like summer rain.