"My dear," said Martha, "which of us two ought to be the better nurse?
You never saw your uncle ill; I've nursed him at death's door!"
"Then you don't think he is angry with me, Martha?" I said, humbled
before myself.
"Was he ever angry with you, Orbie? What is there to be angry about? I
never saw him even displeased with you!"
I had not realized that my uncle was suffering--only that he was
disabled; now the fact flashed upon me, and with it the perception that I
had been thinking only of myself: I was fast ceasing to care for him! And
then, horrible to tell! a flash of joy went through me, that he would not
be home that day, and therefore I _could_ not tell him anything!
The moment Martha left me I threw myself on the floor of the desert room.
I was in utter misery.
"Gladly would I bear every pang of his pain," I said to myself; "yet I
have not asked one question about his accident! He must be in danger, or
he would not have sent for Martha instead of me!"
How had the thing happened, I wondered. Had Death fallen with
him--perhaps on him? He was such a horseman, I could not think he
had been thrown. Besides, Death was a good horse who loved his
master--dearly, I was sure, and would never have thrown him or let him
fall! A great gush of the old love poured from the fountain in my heart:
sympathy with the horse had unsealed it.
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