want of something better.  Euthymia found so much pleasure in the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence and reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had been contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in an abstract sort of way.  Beneath her abstractions there was a capacity of loving which might have been inferred from the expression of her features, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, all of which were full of the language which belongs to susceptible natures.  How many women never say to themselves that they were born to love, until all at once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that he was born a painter is said to have dawned suddenly upon Correggio!

Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers.  She was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or even a bunch of flowers.  She knew that he was receiving abounding tokens of kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a certain inward feeling restrained her from joining in these demonstrations.  If he had been suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would have risked her life to help him, without a thought that there was any wonderful heroism in such self-devotion.  Her friend Lurida might have been capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning with herself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and duties laid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of noble deeds recorded of women in ancient and modern history.  With Euthymia the primary human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection about them.  All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this forlorn stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of giving any complete expression to them.  She thought of Mungo Park in the African desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied him, but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him.  How near were these two human creatures, each needing the other!  How near in bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier seemingly impassable between them!

XXIII

The meeting of Maurice and Euthymia.

These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young people every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases.  Not only are they liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental complications which may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after convalescence seems to be established, relapses occur which are more serious than the disease had appeared to be in its previous course.  One morning Dr. Butts found Maurice worse instead of better, as he had hoped and expected to find him.  Weak as he was, there was every reason to fear the issue of this return of his threatening symptoms.  There was not much to do besides keeping up the little strength which still remained.  It was all needed.