far from improving his appearance i heard that he went to a s in london on the monday morning and had a tooth out i hope it was a double one the doctor gave out that he was not quite well and remained alone for a considerable part of every day during the remainder of the visit and her father had been gone a week before we resumed our usual work on the day preceding its the doctor gave me with his om n hands a folded note not sealed it was addressed to myself and laid an on me in a few affectionate words never to refer to the subject of that evening i had confided it to my aunt but to no one else it was not a subject i could discuss with and certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed neither i felt convinced had mrs strong then several weeks elapsed before i saw the least change in her it came on slowly like a cloud when there is no wind at first she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the doctor spoke to her and at his wish that she should have her mother with her to relieve the dull monotony of her life often when we were at work and she was sitting by i would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face afterwards i sometimes observed her rise with her eyes full of tears and go out of the room gradually an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty and deepened every day mrs was a regular of the cottage then but she talked and talked and saw nothing as this change stole on once like sunshine in the doctor s house the doctor became older in appearance and more grave but the sweetness of his temper the placid kindness of his manner and his benevolent solicitude for her if they were capable of any increase were increased i saw him once early on the morning of her birthday when she came to sit in the window while we were at work which she had always done but now began to do with a timid and uncertain that i thought very touching take her forehead between his hands kiss it and go hurriedly away too much moved to remain i saw her stand where he had left her like a statue and then bend down her head and clasp her hands and weep i cannot say how sorrowfully sometimes after that i fancied that she tried to speak even to me in intervals when we were left alone but she never uttered word the doctor always had some new project for her in amusement of david away from home with her mother and mrs who was very fond of amusements and very easily dissatisfied with anything else entered into them with great good will and was loud in her but in a unhappy way only went whither she was led and seemed to have no care for anything i did not know what to think neither did my aunt who must have walked at various times a hundred miles in her uncertainty what was strangest of all was that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic made its way there in the person of mr dick what his thoughts were on the subject or what his observation was i am as unable to explain as i dare say he would have been to assist me in the task but as i have recorded in the narrative of my school days his veneration for the doctor was unbounded and there is a of perception in real attachment even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals which leaves the highest intellect behind to this mind of the heart if i may call it so in mr dick some bright ray of the truth shot straight he had proudly resumed his privilege in many of his spare hours of walking up and down the garden with the doctor as he had been accustomed to pace up and down the doctor s walk at but matters were no sooner in this state than he devoted all his spare time and got up earlier to make it more to these if he had never been so happy as when the doctor read that performance the dictionary to him he was now quite miserable unless the doctor pulled it out of his pocket and began when the doctor and i were engaged he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with mrs strong and helping her to trim her favorite flowers or weed the beds i dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour but his quiet interest and his wistful face found immediate response in both their breasts each knew that the other liked him and that he loved both and he became what no one else could be � a link between them when i think of him with his wise face walking up and down with the doctor delighted to be battered by the hard words in the dictionary when i think of him carrying huge watering pots after kneeling down in very of gloves at patient work among the little leaves expressing as no philosopher could have expressed in every thing he did a delicate desire to be her friend sympathy and affection out of every hole in the watering pot when i think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which addressed itself never bringing the unfortunate king charles into the garden never wavering in his grateful service never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong or from his wish to set it right � i really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in 