But at last the evening came to an end.  The active trio were in bed and asleep, and the happy mother went softly from one bedside to another, and breathed a silent thanksgiving over each sleeping child, that they had all been preserved from harm and brought safely back to her arms.

Mrs. Stanhope’s summer had been full of excitement of various kinds, such as she had never in her whole life experienced before.  It had been rather a trying thing to her to have her very methodical and regular life so disturbed, and she had not always known how to take with equanimity the alarms and inconveniences that her generous invitation to the doctor’s children had brought upon her.  But she had been interested in the children, and it had been a good thing for her to become accustomed to the interruption of the too rigorous routine in which she had been living.  Elsli’s illness had been a deep and painful experience, but it had produced a blessed change in the whole tone of her life and spirit.  Her new-born love for the little girl had broken up the sealed fountains of her heart, and she felt again the bliss of a mother’s love ardently returned by a child.  A warmer glow was infused too into her feeling for Fani, to whom she had been attracted at first by his resemblance to her Philo.  Time had softened her sorrow for the loss of her boy, so that this resemblance endeared Fani to her, while in Elsli’s case, a similar likeness to Nora had only made it the more difficult to receive one who was brought to her to take Nora’s place, while she was still stunned with the grief of the recent parting.

Her first thought now was for Elsli.  The doctor said that the child must spend the next winter in a warmer climate, and recommended a removal to the south of France or to Italy before the coming of cold weather.

“And meantime,” he said, “you must put a stop to all this long sitting on the stone seat under those heavy lindens down by the water, and to pacing up and down that damp little path that leads to the willows, and to spending hours in that wretched hut by the bog, that isn’t fit for any one to live in.  The river is very beautiful, but it’s better to be looked at from a distance above.  Dry air and sunshine are what our little girl needs.  She couldn’t do anything worse for mind or body than to sit and meditate in that cold, damp, lonely place.”

Mrs. Stanhope’s eyes were opened, and she resolved to act on the doctor’s suggestion, not only with regard to Elsli, but also to the fisherman’s family.  She took measures directly for building a small house on her own land, in a dry situation, but not far from the river, so that he could continue his avocation as a fisherman, while she also gave him steady and profitable employment as a laborer on her estate.  Elsli was very happy watching the progress of the new house and fitting it up for its inmates, and she had the pleasure of seeing them comfortably established there before she went south for the winter.