“Poor child!” Mrs. Erroll said, humbly. “I beg your pardon. But if you feared contagion you ought not to have come here.”
“’Tain’t that—’tain’t that,” said Virginia. “Don’ min’ me; I’m queer like sometimes. I didn’ mean nuthin’. Ev’ybordy in this neighborhood ’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse. I’ve come to he’p yo’. I’ve come to take kyar of her. I’ve come to make her live!”
She lifted one arm with a gesture of command almost threatening. The next moment it dropped heavily to her side. The old dull look crept like a shadow over the momentary animation of her face. “They’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse,” she said, in her slow monotone.
Mrs. Erroll was only too thankful for the proffered services. She had no assistance from the whites in the neighborhood; indeed, all of the neighboring families had left for the Virginia Springs.
Virginia, after removing her shoes, went at once to the sick-room. As her eyes fell upon the flushed face on the pillow it was as if every drop of blood in her body turned first to fire and then to ice.
She stood with her hands against her breast and looked down at her own work. The beautiful dark tresses, formerly so smoothly braided about the small head, now ever turning from side to side as though in search of rest which it found not, were tangled and matted until no trace of their former lustre remained; the red lips, ever moving, gave forth wild, incoherent cries and mutterings.
About the slender throat coiled the wraith of a dark-blue velvet ribbon.
“Take it off, take it off,” whispered Virginia. “She kyarn’ git well while that’s there—she kyarn’.” Reason came back to her with a sudden rush, and she knew that only her mind’s eye saw the velvet ribbon.
She then took her place by the bedside, from which she did not move to eat or sleep for twelve days and nights. They brought her bouillon and made her drink it under penalty of being turned from the room. For twelve times four-and-twenty hours she listened to those senseless ravings. She was mistaken in turn by the sick girl for her mother, for some of her school-room friends, for Roden. Mary would sometimes put up both narrow, fever-wasted hands to her little throat, and cry out that she was choking—that Virginia had brought her a band of fire and locked it about her throat. By what strange coincidence such a fancy should have possessed her who shall say?