security that none other could impart.

Her fancy played about him very curiously in those days. She saw him in
many guises,--as prince, as knight, as magician; but never as the mean
and insignificant figure which first had caught her attention on that
sunny morning before the fancy-dress ball.

This man who sat beside her bed of suffering for hours together because
she fretted when he went away, who held her up when the gathering billows
threatened to overwhelm her fainting soul, who prayed for her with the
utmost simplicity when she told him piteously that she could not pray for
herself, this man was above and beyond all ordinary standards. She looked
up to him with reverence, as one of colossal strength who had power with
God.

But she never dreamed again that golden dream of Greatheart in his
shining armour with the light of a great worship in his eyes. That had
been a wild flight of presumptuous fancy that never could come true.

His was not the only hand to which she clung during those terrible days
of fear and suffering. Another presence was almost constantly beside her
night and day,--a tender, motherly presence that watched over and
ministered to her with a devotion that never slackened. For some time
Dinah could not find a name for this gracious and comforting presence,
but one day when a figure clothed in a violet dressing-gown stooped over
her to give her nourishment an illuminating memory came to her, and from
that moment this loving nurse of hers filled a particular niche in her
heart which was dedicated to the Purple Empress. She could think of no
other name for her. That quiet and stately presence seemed to demand a
royal appellation. In her calmer moments Dinah liked to lie and watch the