“Oh, I am so sorry!” she answered sadly, and her eyes filled with tears, which she did not try to conceal, for looking through the window across the snow-clad field, on which the winter moon was shining, she saw instinctively another grave beside that of her mother.

Madam Conway had not yet appeared, and, as Anna Jeffrey just then left the room, Mr. Carrollton was for some moments alone with Maggie.  Winding his arm around her waist, and giving her a most expressive look, he said, “Maggie, are those tears for me?”

Instantly the bright blushes stole over Maggie’s face and neck, for she remembered the time when once before he had asked her a similar question.  Not now, as then, did she turn away from ’him, but she answered frankly:  “Yes, they are.  You look so pale and thin, I’m sure you must be very ill.”

Whether Mr. Carrollton liked “blowsy” complexions or not, he certainly admired Maggie’s at that moment, and drawing her closer to his side, he said, half playfully, half earnestly:  “To see you thus anxious for me, Maggie, more than atones for your waywardness when last we parted.  You are forgiven, but you are unnecessarily alarmed.  I shall be better soon.  Hillsdale air will do me good, and I intend remaining here until I am well again.  Will you nurse me, Maggie, just as my sister Helen would do were she here?”

The right chord was touched, and all the soft, womanly qualities of Maggie Miller’s nature were called forth by Arthur Carrollton’s failing health.  For several weeks after his arrival at Hillsdale he was a confirmed invalid, lying all day upon the sofa in the parlor, while Maggie read to him from books which he selected, partly for the purpose of amusing himself, and more for the sake of benefiting her and improving her taste for literature.  At other times he would tell her of his home beyond the sea, and Maggie, listening to him while he described its airy halls, its noble parks, its shaded walks, and musical fountains, would sometimes wish aloud that she might one day see that spot which seemed to her so much like paradise.  He wished so too, and oftentimes when, with half-closed eyes, his mind was wandering amid the scenes of his youth, he saw at his side a queenly figure with features like those of Maggie Miller, who each day was stealing more and more into his heart, where love for other than his nearest friends had never before found entrance.  She had many faults, he knew, but these he possessed both the will and the power to correct, and as day after day she sat reading at his side he watched her bright, animated face, thinking what a splendid woman she would make, and wondering if an American rose like her would bear transplanting to English soil.