She still welcomed her friend Scott at her bedside, but very curiously
she had grown a little shy in his presence. She could not forget that
dream of hers, and for a long time she was haunted by the dread that he
had in some way come to know of it. Though the steady eyes never held
anything but the utmost kindness and sympathy, she was half afraid to
meet them lest they should look into her heart and see the vision she had
seen. She never called him Mr. Greatheart now.
With Isabel, beloved nurse and companion, she was completely at her ease.
A great change had come over Isabel--such a change as turns the bare
earth into a garden of spring when the bitter winter is past at last. All
the ice-bound bitterness had been swept utterly away, and in its place
there blossomed such a wealth of mother-love as transformed her
completely.
She spent herself with the most lavish devotion in Dinah's service. There
was not a wish that she expressed that was not swiftly and abundantly
satisfied. Night and day she was near her, ignoring all Biddy's
injunctions to rest, till the old woman, seeing the light that had dawned
in the shadowed eyes, left her to take her own way in peace. She hovered
in the background, always ready in case her mistress's new-found strength
should fail. But Isabel did not need her care. All her being was
concentrated upon the task of bringing Dinah back to life, and she
thought of nothing else, meeting the strain with that strength which
comes in great emergencies to all.
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