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Rh a few words, empty of all but kindness, to the poor invalid, so thin, so drawn, so moth-eaten in appearance. The spinster, with her ball of red worsted, to which she seemed as inseparably riven as a galley-slave to his chain, also visited Hatty in the garden from time to time; so she was not too lonely during the hours her companions were away. She could not talk much; it made her cough; and she had her book and her thoughts for companions—above all, her thoughts.

She had no illusions about herself. She was visibly weaker than she had been a month ago. At this rate, her term of life would be short. But, on every account, she desired to conceal the rapid advance of her malady as much as possible from Alaric and Elizabeth. She never complained; she received them always on their return with a smile; she evinced the greatest interest in their work; she talked of the studies she should make in the approaching spring. Alaric was, in some measure, blinded. Not so Elizabeth. The woman to whom she had grown so attached, if she saw the spring burst, would still be an invalid. Her day for work—the work she loved so well, and so futilely, poor soul!—was done. She might live on for years: Elizabeth had heard of frail creatures, with both lungs affected, clinging tenaciously to life. But she could not conceal from herself that, in Hatty's case, the disease made rapid progress. Still, the mutual deception common in such cases was kept up; the women trying to deceive each other, both of them anxious to deceive the man.

Elizabeth had, at first, meant to devote herself entirely to her friend; painting was to go to the wall. But she