From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity:  not a day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her amusement or pleasure.  Not a day passed without her showing in many ways that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in it.  Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed weeks before—­even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right.  No stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding.  They had all been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account of her weakness and excitability.

But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware’s face.  I could see, though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul was settling down upon his.  Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie’s every tone and look, grew more and more uneasy.  Dr. ——­, one of the most distinguished physicians of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the house.  He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father’s, and won at once her whole confidence and regard.  For four days he studied her case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure except the patient waiting which was killing us all.

To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin had been her promised husband—­and that having been within two weeks of her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with it—­this would be too fearful a risk.  It might deprive her forever of her reason.

Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, herself.  She recollected her music, her studies, her friends.  She was anxious to resume her old life at all points.  Every day she made allusions to old plans or incidents.  She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting the loverhood of her lover.  Every day she grew stronger, and became more and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably charming.  As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and every living thing.  When the spring first opened and she could be out of doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a mortal maiden.

I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the greenhouse.  Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves—­white, pink, crimson.  She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up.  I sat down on the grass outside and watched her silently.