Her face had changed some.  Years of trial unknown to me had left an ennobling mark upon her features, increasing their power an hundred fold.  And the levity of girlish years was gone.  How I burned to question her!  But her lips were now tight closed, her glance now and anon seeking mine, and then falling with an exquisite droop to the coverlet.  For the old archness, at least, would never be eradicated.  Presently, after she had taken the cup and smoothed my pillow, I reached out for her hand.  It was a boldness of which I had not believed myself capable; but she did not resist, and even, as I thought, pressed my fingers with her own slender ones, the red of our Maryland holly blushing in her cheeks.  And what need of words, indeed!  Our thoughts, too, flew coursing hand in hand through primrose paths, and the angels themselves were not to be envied.

A master might picture my happiness, waking and sleeping, through the short winter days that came and went like flashes of gray light.  The memory of them is that of a figure tall and lithe, a little more rounded than of yore, and a chiselled face softened by a power that is one of the world’s mysteries.  Dorothy had looked the lady in rags, and housewife’s cap and apron became her as well as silks or brocades.  When for any reason she was absent from my side, I moped, to the quiet amusement of Mrs. Manners and the more boisterous delight of Aunt Lucy, who took her turn sewing in the window.  I was near to forgetting the use of words, until at length, one rare morning when the sun poured in, the jolly doctor dressed my wounds with more despatch than common, and vouchsafed that I might talk awhile that day.

“Oh!” cries he, putting me as ever to confusion, “but I have a guess whom my gentleman will be wishing to talk with.  But I’ll warrant, sir, you have said a deal more than I have any notion of without opening your lips.”

And he went away, intolerably pleased with his joke.

Alas for the perversity of maiden natures!  It was not my dear nurse who brought my broth that morning, but Mrs. Manners herself.  She smiled at my fallen face, and took a chair at my bedside.

“Now, my dear boy,” she said, “you may ask what questions you choose, and I will tell you very briefly how you have come here.”

“I have been thinking, Mrs. Manners,” I replied, “that if it were known that you harboured one of John Paul Jones’s officers in London, very serious trouble might follow for you.”

I thought her brow clouded a little.

“No one knows of it, Richard, or is likely to.  Dr. Barry, like so many in England, is a good Whig and friend to America.  And you are in a part of London far removed from Mayfair.”  She hesitated, and then continued in a voice that strove to be lighter:  “This little house is in Charlotte Street, Mary-le-Bone, for the war has made all of us suffer some.  And we are more fortunate than many, for we are very comfortable here, and though I say it, happier than in Arlington Street.  And the best of our friends are still faithful.  Mr. Fox, with all his greatness, has never deserted us, nor my Lord Comyn.  Indeed, we owe them much more than I can tell you of now,” she said, and sighed.  “They are here every day of the world to inquire for you, and it was his Lordship brought you out of Holland.”