When all the visitors had gone, Hanny found it very lonely sleeping in a big room by herself. And as they couldn't move her downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Underhill went upstairs and changed their room to the guest-chamber. Hanny missed her sister very much when night came. But then she had so many lessons to study; and after the history of Holland, they took up that of Spain, which was as fascinating as any romance.
Everybody was a good deal excited this winter about a curious phenomenon. At a small town in Western New York two sisters had announced that they could hold communication with the spirit-world, and receive messages from the dead. Little raps announced the spirit of your friend or relative. To imaginative people, it was simply wonderful. And now the Misses Fox were giving exhibitions and making converts.
People recalled the old Salem witchcraft, and not a few considered it direct dealing with the Evil One. Ben was deeply interested. He and Joe talked over clairvoyance and mesmerism,—a curious power developed by a learned German, Dr. Mesmer, akin to that of some of the old magicians. Ben was very fond of abnormal things; but Joe set down communication with another world as an impossibility. Still, a good many people believed it.
The children joined the singing-school again, and Charles Reed sang at several concerts. He went quite often to the Deans, and occasionally came over to the Underhills. Both houses were so delightful! If he only had a sister, or a brother! Or if his mother would do something beside scrub and clean the house! Social life was so attractive to him.
One day she did do something else. It was February, and the snow and ice had melted rapidly. All the air was full of the sort of chill that goes through one. She wanted some windows washed, and the yard cleared up, and was out in the damp a long while. That night she was seized with a sudden attack of pleurisy. Mr. Reed sprang up and made a mustard draught; but the pain grew so severe that he called Charles, and sent him over for Doctor Joe. By daylight, fever set in, and it was so severe a case that Doctor Joe called a more experienced doctor in consultation, and said they must have a nurse at once.
Charles had never seen her ill before. And when the doctors looked so grave, and the nurse spoke in such low tones, he was certain she could not live. He was so nervous that he could not get his lessons, and roamed about the house in a frightened sort of way. The nurse was used to housekeeping as well, and when she was needed downstairs Charles stayed in the sick-room. His mother did not know him or any one, but wandered in her mind, and was haunted by the ghosts of work in a manner that was pitiful to listen to. The nurse said she had made work her idol. There were two days when Mr. Reed stayed at home, though he sent Charles off to school. They had a woman in the kitchen now, a relative he had written for, Cousin Jane that Charles had once met in the country. She was extremely tidy; but she put on an afternoon gown, and a white apron, and found time in the evening to read the paper.
On the second afternoon both doctors went away just as Charles came home. His father was standing on the stoop with them, and Doctor Joe looked down and smiled. The boy's heart beat with a sudden warmth, as he went down the area steps, wiped his feet, and hung up his cap and overcoat with as much care as if his mother's sharp eyes were on him. There was no one in the room; but he sat down at once to his lessons.
Presently his father entered. His eyes had a pathetic look, as if they were flooded with tears.
"The doctor gives us a little hope, Charles," he said, in a rather tremulous voice. "It's been a hard pull. The fever was broken yesterday; but she was so awful weak; indeed, it seemed two or three times in the night as if she was quite gone. Since noon there has been a decided change; and, if nothing new happens, she will come around all right. It will be a long while though. She's worked too hard and steady; but it has not been my fault. At all events, we'll keep Cousin Jane just as long as we can. And now I must run down-town for a few hours. Tell Cousin Jane not to keep tea waiting."
Charles sat in deep thought many minutes. His father's unwonted emotion had touched him keenly. Of course he would have been very sorry to have his mother die, yet how often he had wished for another mother. The thought shocked him now; and yet he could see so many places where it would be delightful to have her different. Careful as she was of him, he had no inner consciousness that she loved him, and he did so want to have some one he could love and caress, and who would make herself pretty. Hanny loved her father and mother so much. She "hung around" them. She sat in her father's lap and threaded his hair with her soft little fingers. She had such pretty ways with her mother. She didn't seem ever to feel afraid.