CHAPTER IX. 

IN WHICH MR. HAMLIN PASSES. 

With his lips sealed by the positive mandate of the lovely spectre, Mr. Hamlin resigned himself again to weakness and sleep. When he awoke, Olly was sitting by his bedside; the dusky figure of Pete, spectacled and reading a good book, was dimly outlined against the window--but that was all. The vision--if vision it was--had fled. 

"Olly," said Mr. Hamlin, faintly. 

"Yes!" said Olly, opening her eyes in expectant sympathy. 

"How long have I been dr--I mean how long has this--spell lasted?" 

"Three days," said Olly. 

"The ---- you say!" (A humane and possibly weak consideration for Mr. Hamlin in his new weakness and suffering restricts me to a mere outline of his extravagance of speech.) 

"But you're better now," supplemented Olly. 

Mr. Hamlin began to wonder faintly if his painful experience of the last twenty-four hours were a part of his convalsecence. He was silent for a few moments and then suddenly turned his face toward Olly. 

"Didn't you say something about--about--your sister, the other day?" 

"Yes--she's got back," said Olly, curtly. 

"Here?" 

"Here." 

"Well?" said Mr. Hamlin, a little impatiently. 

"Well," returned Olly, with a slight toss of her curls, "she's got back and I reckon it's about time she did." 

Strange to say, Olly's evident lack of appreciation of her sister seemed to please Mr. Hamlin--possibly because it agreed with his own idea of Grace's superiority and his inability to recognise or accept her as the sister of Gabriel. 

"Where has she been all this while?" asked Jack, rolling his large hollow eyes over Olly. 
Who was nearest to him?
hen he awoke, Olly was sitting by his bedside; the dusky figure of Pete, spectacled and reading a good book, was dimly outlined against the window-