“It cannot be true! O, mother—tell me, mother!”
Mrs. T. fairly leaped to the bedside, and placing her hand over the daughter’s mouth, with affrighted gestures, she exclaimed,—
“What is it? What does she mean? My God, doctor, she raves!”
The girl fell back on her pillow; the mother stood, pale and trembling, by the bedside, with a nameless terror depicted on every feature. Turning to me, in a quick, restless voice, she bade me hasten to give her child a quieting draught.
“O, anything that will keep her from raving!”
The room was not over warm for such a bitter night, yet the perspiration stood upon the brow of the excited mother like the fallen dew.
“Conscience must lie here,” I thought to myself.
In the course of an hour the sufferer slumbered heavily; her breathing was hurried and oppressed, the fever had increased, and her moanings were constant.
Day was breaking, as I left my young patient to return home through the falling snow. As I looked out of the carriage window, I saw a little boy sitting on the cold walk. It was the poor beggar boy of yesterday, as thinly clad, with his pale cheek as white as the snowdrifts through which he had toiled. I ordered the coachman to stop.
