_"In the unruffled shelter of thy love,
My bark leaped homeward from a stormy sea,
And furled its sails, and, like a nested dove--"_

"Mother!" called out Arthur's feeble, fretful voice, and in a minute the
poetry had all gone out of her head, and she was by her boy's side,
feeding him, jesting with him, and planning how the first day of his
convalescence should be celebrated by a grand festival, inviting the two
others to tea in his room. It was her own room, from which he had
never been moved since the first night. How familiar had grown the
crimson sofa, the tall mirror, the carved oaken wardrobe! The bride
had regarded these splendors with a wondering half-uneasy gratitude;
but now, to Arthur's nurse and "mother," they looked pleasant, home-
like, and dear.

"We will pull the sofa to the fire. Help, papa, please, and place the
little table before it. And we will send written invitations which papa
shall deliver, with a postman's knock, at the nursery door. We won't
send him one, I think?"

"Very well," said Dr. Grey, with a great pretense of wrath; "then papa
will have to invite himself, like the wicked old fairy at the christening
of--Who was it, Arthur?"

Arthur clapped his hands, which proceeding was instantly stopped by
Christian. "It was the Sleeping Beauty, which you don't know one bit
about, and I do, and ever so many more tales. She used to tell me them
in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep, and they were so nice
and so funny! She shall tell you some after tea. And we'll make her
sing too. Papa, did you ever hear her sing?"