"Yes. He told Richmond you used to go to school together, and he's coming down here on his way to the train. And sick or well, he said, you'd got to see him."
Sabrina had put one shaking hand to her hair. "It's turned white," she whispered.
But Clelia did not hear her. She had opened the chest at the foot of the bed, and taken out a soft package delicately wrapped. She pulled out a score of pins and shook the shimmering folds of the blue dress. Then she glanced at Sabrina still sitting there, the color flooding her cheeks again with their old pinkness.
"Oh!" breathed Clelia, in rapture at the dress, and again at the sweet rose-bloom in Sabrina's face. Then she calmed herself, remembering this was a sick chamber, though every moment the airs of life seemed entering. She brought the dress to the bedside. "You put your arm in, Sabrina," she coaxed.
Sabrina did it. She moved in a daze, and presently she was lying in her bed clothed in blue and white, her soft hair piled above her head, and her eyes wide with some unconfessed emotion. But to Clelia, she was accustomed to look vivid; life was her portion always. The girl sped out of the room, and came back presently, her arms full of summer flowers, tiger-lilies, larkspur, monkshood, and herbs that, being bruised, gave out odors. Sabrina's eyes questioned her. Clelia tossed the flowers in a heap on the table.
"What you doin' that for?" asked Sabrina.
"I don't know," answered the girl, in a whisper. "There's no time to put 'em in water. I want to have things pretty, that's all. You take your drops, dear. They've come."
But Sabrina lay there, an image of beauty in a sea of calm.
"I don't want any drops," she said. "I shouldn't think o' dyin' now."
Clelia went out, and presently Sabrina heard her young voice with its note of happiness.