"Is he so very ill?" I inquired.
"He has been restless and excited, more or less, for a week or more, but during the last three days has fallen seriously ill. Now he is entirely out of his head; my daughter sat up with him all last night; the doctor was here this morning. He pronounces it a brain-fever."
I was really disturbed. She saw it and went on.
"He asked for you three or four times during the night; and—and for another person whom we could not venture to invite here."
"I am glad you sent for me," I replied, anxious to waive all explanation. "At home they consider me a tolerable nurse."
She looked at me seriously a moment, and then said, in a gentle, impressive way,—
"Miss Hyde, be kind to an old woman who has nothing but the good of her child at heart, and tell me if Miss Lee has—has repulsed my grandson?"
"No, not that, madam; but, but—"
"She has rejected him, I see it by your face; I suspected it from his wanderings," she said, sorrowfully.
I was silent; the mournful accents of her voice touched my heart.