“Look out, Nancy! What is the matter with your mother?”
With a cry the girl caught the frail little lady in her arms as the letter slipped unheeded from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Sherwood's eyes were closed. She had fainted.
Chapter VI. A SPRAT FOR A HERRING
“I don't need the doctor this time, honey; joy never killed yet.”
So said Mrs. Sherwood, opening her eyes to see the scared face of Nan close above her. Then she saw her husband at her feet, quietly chafing her hands in his own hard, warm palms. She pulled hers gently from his clasp and rested them upon his head. Mr. Sherwood's hair was iron-gray, thick, and inclined to curl. She ran her little fingers into it and clung tightly.
“Let, let me get my breath!” she gasped. Then, after a moment she smiled brilliantly into the wind-bitten face of the kneeling man. “It's all over, Robert,” she said.
“My dear!” he cried thickly; while Nan could not wholly stifle the cry of fear that rose to her lips.
“It's all over,” repeated the little woman. “All the worry, all the poverty, all the uncertainty, all the hard times.”
Mr. Sherwood looked startled indeed. He had no idea what the letter from Scotland contained, and he feared that his wife, who had already suffered so much, was for the moment quite out of her head.