“Oh, no, ma’am! She is doing very well, the doctor says.”
She crossed the room, and sat down on the edge of the mattress, taking one of the large brown hands in both of hers and bending her face over the pillow.
“Elsie! mother! Elsie, speak to your poor child!”
That wailing voice pierced the stupor, and Dr. Grey was surprised to see the woman’s eyes unclose and rest wonderingly upon the countenance hovering over her.
“My dear Elsie, don’t you know me?”
“Yes, my bairn. What ails you?”
She spoke indistinctly, and shut her eyes once more, as if exhausted.
“If she was in her coffin, I verily believe she would rise, if she heard your voice calling her,” said Robert, wiping away the tears of joy that trickled across his sunburnt cheeks.
Dr. Grey stooped to put his finger on Elsie’s pulse, and Mrs. Gerome threw herself down on the carpet, and buried her face in the pillow, where her silver hair mingled with the grizzled locks that straggled from beneath the old woman’s torn lace cap.