Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/47

 vant in similar circumstances. He brought in food for her to cook. He bought her a dress, which she made over. He got her sewing materials when she asked for them, and she made herself underclothes and mended his. He did not ask her any questions about herself. He accepted her dumb and doglike fidelity without comment. She ate her food in the kitchen—which he never entered, although the door was never closed between them. She served him his meals on his work-table, and he took them absent-mindedly, reading or even writing between bites. He noticed a gradual improvement in her appearance, but he did not remark it.

One evening, as he worked, he heard her humming an air to herself, over her ironing, in the kitchen, and he listened, smiling, but he did not speak. He discovered that she was reading his books in his absence, and he began to buy novels for her—Scott and Dumas and historical fiction, chiefly, because he was afraid that modern literature might affect her adversely. He worked very late, one night, on a story that he had picked up from a derelict in the Mills House; and when he returned, next day, from an afternoon in the Astor Library he found that she had copied out his manuscript for him in a clear, girlish handwriting. He thanked her for it, as matter-of-fact as possible, but he was worried. The story was not cheerful; it was taken from the low life on which it was not