“Oh! I am so glad,” rejoined Annie, “for I wasn’t sure whether he had come or not; because, though I looked for him on the road, I couldn’t see him.”
At the same moment the doctor came in, with a blithe face.
“Mary is safe now,” said he. “There has been a crisis, after all. The sweat has broken out upon her dry skin, and she will be well in a very short time.”
“And there’s no thanks to you,” said Annie, “because it was I who went for the pelican.”
Whereupon the doctor looked to the father, who, taking him aside, narrated to him the story, at which the doctor was so pleased that he laughed right out.
“You’re the noblest little heroine I ever heard of,” said he.
“But have you had anything to eat, dear, in this long journey?” said the mother.
“No, I didn’t want,” was the answer; “all I wanted was to save Mary’s life, and I am glad I have done it.”
And glad would we be if, by the laws of historical truth, our stranger story could have ended here; but, alas! we are obliged to pain the good reader’s heart by saying that the demon who had left the troubled little breast of Mary Maconie took possession of Annie’s. The very next day she lay extended on the bed, panting under the fell embrace of the relentless foe. As Mary got better, Annie grew worse; and her case was so far unlike Mary’s, that there was more a tendency to a fevered state of the brain. The little sufferer watched with curious eyes the anxious faces of her parents, and seemed conscious that she was in a dangerous condition. Nor did it fail to occur to her as a great mystery as well as wonder, why they did not send for the wonderful being who had so promptly saved the life of her sister. The thought haunted her, yet she was afraid to mention it to her mother, because it implied a sense of danger—a fear which one evening she overcame. Fixing her eyes, now every moment waxing less clear, on the face of her mother—
“Oh! mother, dear,” she whispered, “why do you not send for the pelican?”