“Yes.  Art says you may, and Ned is asking for you.  How fond he is of you, Zoe! though, I think, no fonder than you are of him.”

“I don’t deserve it,” responded Zoe, with unwonted humility, answering the first part of the remark.

“I don’t see but you do,” said Ella.  “Can I help you with your dressing?  I know you are in a hurry to get to him.”

“Thank you.  I don’t think you can, but I’ll be done in five minutes.”

Edward lay watching for her coming, listening for the sound of her light footsteps, and, as she opened the door, looked up, and greeted her with a tenderly affectionate smile.

“O Ned! dear, dear Ned!” she cried, hastening to the bedside; “how like yourself you look again!”

“And feel, too, love,” he said, drawing her down till their lips met in a long kiss.

Arthur had stepped out on her entrance, and they were quite alone together.

“God has been very good to us, darling, in sparing us to each other,” Edward said, in low, moved tones.

“Oh, yes, yes!” she sobbed.  “And I didn’t deserve it; for I was so cross to you day before yesterday, when you asked me to go with you:  and I’d been cross for days before that.  Can you, will you, forgive me, dear Ned?”

“I have not been blameless, and we will exchange forgiveness,” he said, drawing her closer, till her head rested against his breast.

“It is so good in you to say that,” she sobbed.  “Oh, if you had been killed, as I thought for one minute you were, I could never have had an hour of peace or comfort in this world!  Those unkind words would have been the last I ever spoke to you; and I should never have been able to forget them, or the sad look that your face must have worn as you turned away.  I didn’t see it, for I had rudely turned my back to you; but I could imagine it:  for I knew you must have been hurt, and grieved too.”

“So I was, little wife,” he said tenderly, and passing his hand caressingly over her hair and cheek:  “but a few moments’ honest retrospect showed me that I was not blameless, had not been as forbearing and affectionate in my treatment of my darling little wife, for the past few days, as I ought to have been; and I resolved to tell her so, on the first opportunity.”

“O Ned!  I don’t deserve such a kind, loving husband!” she sighed; “and you ought to have a great deal better wife.”

“I am entirely satisfied with the one I have,” lifting her hand to his lips.  “There isn’t a woman in the world I would exchange her for.”

“But I often do and say things you don’t approve,” she murmured, with a regretful sigh.

“Yes; but have I not told you more than once, that I do not want a piece of perfection for my wife, lest there should be far too strong a contrast between her and myself?”

“But there wouldn’t be,” she asserted.  “I don’t believe there’s another man in all the world quite so dear and good as my husband.”