She might be lifted to the sofa the next day, and if that agreed with her, she might be carried downstairs.
This, in itself, after she had been confined to her bed for three months, was a release from captivity, and all the brothers and sisters rejoiced as if she was actually on her feet again.

Richard betook himself to constructing a reading-frame for the sofa; Harry tormented Miss Winter by insisting on a holiday for the others, and gained the day by an appeal to his father; then declared he should go and tell Mr.
Wilmot the good news; and Norman, quite enlivened, took up his hat, and said he would come too.
In all his joy, however, Dr.May could not cease bewailing the alteration in his old friend, and spent half the evening in telling Margaret how different he had once been, in terms little less measured than Ethel's: "I never saw such a change.

Mat Fleet was one of the most warm, open-hearted fellows in the world, up to anything.

I can hardly believe he is the same--turned into a mere machine, with a moving spring of self-interest! I don't believe he cares a rush for any living thing! Except for your sake, Margaret, I wish I had never seen him again, and only remembered him as he was at Edinburgh, as I remembered dear old Spencer.

It is a grievous thing! Ruined entirely! No doubt that London life must be trying--the constant change and bewilderment of patients preventing much individual care and interest.