Seaton made no reply but a moan, and lay back like one dead, utterly
crushed by this cruel blow.

A buxom middle-aged nurse now came up and said, with a touch of severity,
"Come, my good girl, no doubt you mean well, but you are doing ill. You
had better leave him to us for the present."

On this hint Wilson bounced out and left the patient to his misery.

At her next visit she laid a nosegay on his bed and gossiped away,
talking of everything in the world except Miss Rolleston.

At last she came to a pause, and Seaton laid his hand on her arm
directly, and looking piteously in her face spoke his first word.

"Does she love him?"

"What, still harping on _her?"_ said Wilson. "Well, she doesn't hate him,
I suppose, or she would not marry him."

"For pity's sake don't trifle with me! Does she love him?"

"La, James, how can I tell? She mayn't love him quite as much as I could
love a man that took my fancy" (here she cast a languishing glance on
Seaton); "but I see no difference between her and other young ladies.
Miss is very fond of her papa, for one thing; and he favors the match.
Ay, and she likes her partner well enough. She is brighter like, now he
is in the house, and she reads all her friends' letters to him ever so
lovingly; and I do notice she leans on him out walking, a trifle more
than there is any need for."