CHAPTER XII.
SISTER HELENA.My progress towards restored health was but slow; and poor I—an individual who had always regarded with mortal aversion confinement and monotony in every shape—was forced to undergo the tedium of a protracted illness and convalescence. Terribly weary did I get of the long days and nights as they dragged on without bringing anything to amuse me, and to enliven the dulness of existence. Other patients had friends and acquaintances who came to see them on visiting days, but I had not even that mild excitement to look forward to, for I was utterly solitary and unknown. Unluckily, too, the literary resources of the place were but limited. For though there was a so-called library yet its stock of books was lamentably small, and, as it seemed to me, uninteresting. And
