The weeks of Rachel's sickness that followed were perhaps the best
discipline Evesham's life had ever known. He held the perfect flower of his
bliss unclosing in his hand; yet he might barely permit himself to breathe
its fragrance. His mother had been a strong and prosperous woman; there had
been little he had ever been able to do for her. It was well for him to
feel the weight of helpless infirmity in his arms as he lifted Dorothy's
mother from side to side of her bed, while Dorothy's hands smoothed the
coverings. It was well for him to see the patient endurance of suffering,
such as his youth and strength defied. It was bliss to wait on Dorothy
and follow her with little watchful homages, received with a shy wonder
which was delicious to him; for Dorothy's nineteen years had been too full
of service to others to leave much room for dreams of a kingdom of her
own. Her silent presence in her mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle,
decisive voice and ways, her composure and unshaken endurance through
nights of watching and days of anxious confinement and toil, gave him a new
reverence for the powers and mysteries of her unfathomable womanhood.

The time of Friend Barton's return drew near. It must be confessed that
Dorothy welcomed it with something of dread, and that Evesham did not
welcome it at all. On the contrary, the thought of it roused all his latent
obstinacy and aggressiveness. The first day or two after the momentous
arrival wore a good deal upon every member of the family, except Margaret
Evesham, who was provided with a philosophy of her own, that amounted
almost to a gentle obtuseness and made her a comfortable non-conductor,
preventing more electric souls from shocking each other.

On the morning of the fourth day, Dorothy came out of her mother's room
with a tray of empty dishes in her hands. She saw Evesham at the stair-head
and hovered about in the shadowy part of the hall till he should go down.