A noise from up-stairs arrested the younger Mrs. Bosworth in her walk.
"He is calling," she said. "Oh! Miss Hyde, he cannot bear me out of his sight! Just as it was years ago, when he would plead with me to sit by his bed, after our mother there insisted on the lamp being put out."
The old lady shook her head, and smiled sadly. "You were spoiling the boy, Hester, making a little coward of him; but he soon ceased to be afraid of the dark,—a brave young man, Miss Hyde, and a comfort to his mother; God spare him to us!"
Hester Bosworth began to cry afresh at these encomiums; and, going up to her mother-in-law's chair, bent her head upon the back, sobbing aloud.
The old lady reached up her soft, little hand, and patted the poor mother on the cheek as if she had been a child.
"Don't fret so, Hester. Our boy is young, and his constitution will not give way easily. A little sleep—if we could only induce a few hours' sleep!"
"I have made a hop pillow for him, and done everything," sobbed the mother; "but there he lies, looking, looking, looking, now at the wall, now at the ceiling, and muttering to himself."
"I know—I know," said the grandmother, hastily lifting her hand, as if the description wounded her. "Will nothing give him a little sleep?"
I remembered how often Mrs. Lee, in her nervous paroxysms, had been soothed to rest by the gentle force of my own will. Indeed, I sometimes fancy that some peculiar gift has been granted to me, by which physical suffering grows less in my presence.
"Shall I go up with you, Mrs. Bosworth?" I said, inspired with hope by this new idea. "He may recognize me as an old friend."