"I'll set the milk down here," Celia went on, "and maybe you will feel like drinking some more of it after a little while."
She set the cup on a chair by Edna's bedside and stole softly out of the room, leaving her sister to fall into another doze from which she was awakened by hearing a timid voice say: "Excuse me. I hope you are not asleep, but I want to say good-bye," and turning over, Edna saw her little Cousin Lulie.
"Oh, are you going?" came from the little girl in bed.
"Yes, we are all ready. I am so sorry you are sick. I like you so much and I wish you would come to our house some day."
Edna was too polite not to make some effort of appreciation, so she sat up and held out her little hot hand. "Oh, thank you," she answered; "I should love to come, and I wish you could come to see us. Ask Uncle Bert to bring you real soon."
"Mother said I had better not kiss you," remarked Lulie honestly, "for I might take your cold, but I have folded up a kiss in this piece of paper and I will put it here so you can get it when I am gone."
Edna smiled at this and liked Lulie all the better for the fancy. "I won't forget it," she said earnestly. "I will send you one when I get well, but you'd better not take a feverish one with you. Good-bye, and say good-bye to all the others."
"They would have come, too," Lulie informed her, "but mother thought one of us was enough when you had a headache, and that I could bring all the good-byes for the others. Now I must go. Get well soon." And she was off leaving Edna with a consciousness of it's being a wise decree which prevented more visitors, for her headache was so much the worse for having had but one.
She lay very still wishing the noises below would cease, the running back and forth, the shutting of doors, the calling of the boys to one another and the crying of the baby. But last of all she heard the carriage wheels on the gravel, and then it was suddenly silent. The boys had all gone off to play, and the only sounds were occasional footsteps on the stair, the stirring of the kitchen fire, and outside, the distant "Caw! Caw!" of the crows in the trees. For a long time she was very quiet. Once her mother came to the door and peeped in, but, seeing no movement, believed the child asleep, but later she came in and Edna opened her eyes to see her standing by her bedside.
"Poor little lass," said her mother, "you're not feeling well at all, are you? I am afraid you have a little fever. I will give you something that I hope will make you feel better."