to be alone, and then Decima would sit in this room, and feel more at home than in any room in the house.  When Lionel began to recover, the room was given over to him.  Here he lay on the sofa; or lounged on an easy-chair; or stood at the window, his hands clasping hold of some support, and his legs as tottering as were poor old Matthew Frost’s.  Sometimes Lady Verner would be his companion, sometimes he would be consigned to Decima and Lucy Tempest.  Lucy was pleased to take her share of helping the time to pass; would read to him, or talk to him; or sit down on her low stool on the hearth-rug and only look at him, waiting until he should want something done.  Dangerous moments, Miss Lucy!  Unless your heart is cased in adamant, you can scarcely be with that attractive man—­ten times more attractive now, in his sickness—­and not get your wings singed.

Jan came in one day when Lionel was sitting on the sofa, having propped the cushion up at the back of his head.  Decima was winding some silk, and Lucy was holding the skein for her.  Lucy wore a summer dress of white muslin, a blue sprig raised upon it in tambour-stitch, with blue and white ribbons at its waist and neck.  Very pretty, very simple it looked, but wonderfully according with Lucy Tempest.  Jan looked round, saw a tolerably strong table, and took up his seat upon it.

“How d’ye get on, Lionel?” asked he.

It was Dr. West who attended Lionel, and Jan was chary of interfering with the doctor’s proper patients—­or, rather, the doctor was chary of his doing so—­therefore Jan’s visits were entirely unprofessional.

“I don’t get on at all—­as it seems to me,” replied Lionel.  “I’m sure I am weaker than I was a week ago.”

“I dare say,” said Jan.

“You dare say!” echoed Lionel.  “When a man has turned the point of an illness, he expects to get stronger, instead of weaker.”

“That depends,” said Jan.  “I beg your pardon, Miss Lucy; that’s my foot caught in your dress, isn’t it?”

Lucy turned to disentangle her dress from Jan’s great feet.  “You should not sway your feet about so, Jan,” said she pleasantly.

“It hasn’t hurt it, has it?” asked Jan.

“Oh, no.  Is there another skein to hold, Decima?”

Decima replied in the negative.  She rose, put the paper of silk upon the table, and then turned to Jan.

“Mamma and I had quite a contention yesterday,” she said to him.  “I say that Lionel is not being treated properly.”

“That’s just my opinion,” laconically replied Jan.  “Only West flares up so, if his treatment is called in question.  I’d get him well in half the time.”

Lionel wearily changed his position on the sofa.  The getting well, or the keeping ill, did not appear to interest him greatly.

“Let’s look at his medicine, Decima,” continued Jan.  “I have not seen what has come round lately.”

Decima left the room and brought back a bottle with some medicine in it.