“I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,” said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. “It was a long way for him.”

I began to think I would do it today.

“It was a long way for him ,” said I, “for he had nothing to uphold him on the journey.”

“Wasn’t he fed, poor thing?” asked Dora.

I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.

“Ye-yes,” I said, “he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.”

Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while⁠—I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very rigid state⁠—