for I have done no nursing."

"If you will walk a little way with me, I will tell you all you need
know. He will sleep now, I think--at least till you get back: I shall
not keep you beyond a few minutes. It is not a very awkward fracture,"
he continued, as they went. "It might have been much worse! We shall
have him about in a few weeks. But he will want the greatest care while
the bones are uniting."

The laird turned from the bed, and went to his study, where he walked up
and down, lost and old and pale, the very Bibliad of the room with its
ancient volumes all around. Whatever his eyes fell upon, he turned from,
as if he had no longer any pleasure in it, and presently stole back to
the room where the sufferer lay. On tiptoe, with a caution suggestive of
a wild beast asleep, he crept to the bed, looked down on his unwelcome
guest with an expression of sympathy crossed with dislike, and shook his
head slowly and solemnly, like one injured but forgiving.

His eye fell on the young man's pocket-book. It had fallen from his coat
as they undressed him, and was on a table by the bedside. He caught it
up just ere Alexa reentered.

"How is he, father?" she asked.

"He is fast asleep," answered the laid. "How long does the doctor think
he will have to be here?"

"I did not ask him," she replied.

"That was an oversight, my child," he returned. "It is of consequence we