It was well that Armine was both rational and unselfish, for nothing seemed to soothe Jock for a moment but his mother’s hand and his mother’s voice.  It was plain that fever and rheumatism had a hold upon him, and what or who was there to contend with them in this wayside inn?  The rooms, though clean, were bare of all but the merest necessaries, and though the young hostess was kind and anxious, her maids were the roughest and most ignorant of girls, and there were no appliances for comfort-—nothing even to drink but milk, bottled lemonade, and a tisane made of yellow flowers, horrible to the English taste.

And Jock, ill as he was, did not fill his mother with such dread for the future as did Armine, when she found him, quiet indeed, but unable to lie down, except when supported on John’s breast and in his arms-—with a fearful oppression and pain in his chest, and every token that the lungs were suffering.  He had not let them call her.  Jock’s murmurs and cries were to be heard plainly through the wooden partition, and the little fellow knew she could not be spared, and only tried to prevent John and Mr. Graham from alarming her.  “She-— can’t-—do-—any-—good,” he gasped out in John’s ear.

No, nobody could, without medical skill and appliances.  The utmost that the house could do was to produce enough mustard to make two plasters, and to fill bottles with hot water, to warm stones, and to wrap them in blankets.  And what was this, in such cold as penetrated the wooden building, too high up in the mountains for the June sun as yet to have full power?  The snow kept blinding and drifting on, and though everyone said it could not last long at that time in the summer, it might easily last too long for Armine’s fragile life.  Here was evening drawing on and no change outside, so that no offer of reward could make it possible for any messenger to attempt the Gemmi to fetch advice from Leukerbad.

Caroline could not think.  She was in a dull, dreary state of consternation, and all she could dwell on was the immediate need of the moment, soothing Jock’s terrors, and, what was almost worse, his irritable rejection of the beverages she could offer him, and trying to relieve him by rubbing and hot applications.  If ever she could look into Armine’s room, she was filled with still greater dismay, even though a sweet, patient smile always met her, and a resolute endeavour to make the best of it.

“It-—does-—not-—make-—much-—difference,” gasped Armine.  “One would not like anything.”

John came out in a character no one could have expected.  He showed himself a much better nurse, and far more full of resource than the traveller.  It was he who bethought him of keeping a kettle in the room over the inevitable charcoal, so as slightly to mitigate the chill of the air, or the fumes of the charcoal, which were equally perilous and distressing to the labouring lungs.  He was tender and handy in