'It was in vain that Henrietta kissed her, and spoke to her quietly, and soothingly assured her that there was nothing now to fear, and that I tried to make her understand where we were: she took not the slightest notice of us, but only gazed at everything with the same blank, unnatural stare.
'"What is the matter with her? What shall we do?" I whispered, shrinking in dismay from her side.
'"Hush!" she whispered, and stood silently watching with intense interest the countenance of the turnkey's wife.
'The woman bent over the mattress, and, with her hand on Bessie's wrist, scrutinized her earnestly for a few minutes. Then, as she looked, her face changed and, turning to Henrietta, she said gravely: "This is somewhat more than a swoon, mistress. Look at her eyes, and feel her hands too—how cold and clammy! Dear heart! I fear she is very sick. Belike she is going to have the fever, poor lamb!"
'"The fever?" repeated Henrietta faintly.
'"Ay, mistress, it's been raging here of late; and there were some down with it in that room where you've been not very long since. Oh! it's been terrible bad in this place. I've lost two children by it, and I had a touch of it myself."
'Henrietta and I exchanged terrified glances. The remembrance of our conversation that morning was in the minds of both of us.
'"Ay, mistress, 'tis the sickness, I misdoubt me," said the turnkey's wife again, when Henrietta told her of Bessie's restless, feverish night, and her unnatural languor and depression in the morning. "'Tis always so with them when it begins. She was sickening for the fever all day, poor dear lady, depend upon it; and now this fright coming upon it, has driven the poor thing clean out of her wits. 'Twill be more than a miracle if it doesn't go hard with her. Ah! well-a-day, she won't be the first by a long way, whom that stony-hearted, blood-thirsty——"
'"Oh don't, pray don't talk so," implored Henrietta in a tone of distraction. "Only tell me what to do! Only bring her a physician. I will pay you anything you ask, if you will bring a physician to her."
'The woman shook her head doubtfully. She would see if it could be managed, she said; but it was for the governor to give permission. She durst do nothing without his orders, and he had just now gone into court as witness in one of the trials that were taking place; and then (she said), "Mayhap he will dine at his lordship's table. But there, lack-a-day," she concluded, "a physician could do but little for her now. The disease must have its course, you see, mistress; besides, it misgives me—it does indeed, ladies—that it will go hard with her, poor dear!"