Things turned out as I foresaw; for it was only after a rather doubtful
pause that she came up to me, and said that my best friend should of
course be dear to her.

And from that moment no one could have been more helpful than she.
Whatever she undertakes, she always does thoroughly, and she settled
that very evening how the matter should be arranged.

At ten the next morning I was up in my friend's room with my wife, and I
introduced her to him, saying that she wished to be regarded as an old
friend like myself. I told him, as consolingly as I could--but when I
said it, my wife looked away--that his illness absolutely required that
he should put himself under treatment for six months, until the warm
weather came and completed his cure, and that I hoped he would consent
to let me arrange matters at the school for him.

He was evidently both surprised and touched. Life had not offered him
friendship, he said; he was so little used to accept it, even when it
came to him as true and good as this was. After a little parleying, he
surrendered at discretion to my wife, who never liked being defeated.

He would not, however, move to our house, as I suggested, for he had a
fondness for this room, and, as he frankly said, he would not feel happy
if obligations of a pecuniary nature were introduced into the matter.

From this time I visited him as a rule every morning, and generally had
a little chat about different things in the town which I thought might
interest, or at any rate divert him.

My wife treated him in her own way. Contrary to what I had been a little