Mrs. Halfpenny smiled grimly at the notion of her being sooner knocked up than a steam-engine.  Dr. Dagger entirely confirmed her opinion that poor Kalliope was likely to have a serious illness, low nervous fever, and failing action of the heart, no doubt from the severe strain that she had undergone, more or less, for many months, and latterly fearfully enhanced by her mother’s illness, and the shock and suspense about Alexis, all borne under the necessity of external composure and calmness, so that even Mrs. Lee had never entirely understood how much it cost her.  The doctor did not apprehend extreme danger to one young and healthy, but he thought much would depend on good nursing, and on absolute protection from any sort of excitement, so that such care as Mrs. Halfpenny’s was invaluable, since she was well known to be a dove to a patient, but a dragon to all outsiders.

Every one around grieved at having done so little to lighten these burthens, and having even increased them, her brother Alexis above all; but on the other hand, he was the only person who was of any use to her, or was suffered to approach her, since his touch and voice calmed the recurring distress, lest he were still in prison and danger.

Alexis went back dutifully on the Monday morning to his post at the works.  The young man was much changed by his fortnight’s experiences, or rather he had been cured of a temporary fit of distraction, and returned to his better self.  How many discussions his friends held about him cannot be recorded, but after a conversation with Mr. Flight, with whom he was really more unreserved than any other being except Kalliope, this was the understanding at which Miss Mohun and Lady Merrifield arrived as to his nature and character.

Refined, studious, and sensitive, thoroughly religious-minded, and of a high tone of thought, his aspirations had been blighted by his father’s death, his brother’s selfishness, and his mother’s favouritism.  In a brave spirit of self-abnegation, he had turned to the uncongenial employment set before him for the sake of his family, and which was rendered specially trying by the dislike of his fellows to ‘the gentleman cove,’ and the jealousy of the Stebbings.  Alike for his religious and his refined habits he had suffered patiently, as Mr. Flight had always known more or less, and now bore testimony.  The curate, who had opened to him the first door of hope and comfort, had in these weeks begun to see that the apparent fitfulness of his kindness had been unsettling.

Then came the brief dream of felicity excited by Gillian and the darkness of its extinction, just as Frank Stebbing’s failure and the near approach of Mr. White had made the malice of his immediate superiors render his situation more intolerable than ever.  There was the added sting of self-reproach for his presumption towards Gillian, and the neglect caused by his fit of low spirits.  Such a sensitive