proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and
we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and
she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten
minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about
it. I know it in all its moods--when the wind hurries it and the little
wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among
the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of
the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living
gold, I know it well."

"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will
drive you down any time you like."

But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir
Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her
lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was
something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state
than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him
so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never
left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was
given up that he might sit with her.

One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the
park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all
that she loved best was taken.

The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she
should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid
came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be
wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.