She promised, and kept her word; she sat quietly
by his pillow and held his hand, when she came, except when she put
up her own to hide the cough which she could not always restrain.
The nurse told her that, of course, she was not accountable for the
cough, but she had better try to check it. Statira brought troches
with her, and held them in her mouth for this purpose.
Lemuel's family was taken care of in this time of disaster. The
newspapers had made his accident promptly known; and not only
Sewell, but Miss Vane and Mrs. Corey had come to see if they could
be of any use.
One day a young girl brought a bouquet of flowers and set it by
Lemuel's bed, when he seemed asleep. He suddenly opened his eyes,
and saw Sybil Vane for the first time since their quarrel.
She put her finger to her lip, and smiled with the air of a lady
benefactress; then, with a few words of official sympathy, she
encouraged him to get well, and flitted to the next bed, where she
bestowed a jacqueminot rosebud on a Chinaman dying of cancer.
Sewell came often to see him, at first in the teeth of his mother's
obvious hostility, but with her greater and greater relenting.
Nothing seemed gloomier than the outlook for Lemuel, but Sewell had
lived too long not to know that the gloom of an outlook has nothing
to do with a man's real future.
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