get sick again. Come, now, smile away your tears and fears! Your
friend is safe and with you again,' the doctor answered.

"Taking her hand, he led her into the parlor.

"He had not understood the cause of her tears. Only for him she
watched and wept.

"'_Do_ stay,' she plead, when her doctor was going.

"He told her he could not, then; there was another call he must make,
but would return after a while.

"She counted the minutes, until she should see him again. Never
concealing from any of us how dearly she loved him. She was truly as
guileless as a child of six years.

"From the first of her acquaintance with him, she had declared 'her
doctor' was like her father. Mother, too, admitted the resemblance was
very decided.

"This it was, I think, that first made him so dear to her.

"Several times, after the doctor returned that evening, I saw he
sought opportunity to speak to me, unheard by others. But Lilly was
always near.

"Ah! it was better so. Better that from his _own_ lips I heard not
those words he would have spoken. Doubly hard would have been the
trial. Oh, that night when he said, 'good-by!' He slipped in my hand a