'Perhaps you caught cold, my child; but we must not talk too much.'
'A fever! I never had a fever before. A fever is like a dream.'
'Hush! sweet love. Indeed you must not speak.'
'Give me your hand, mamma; I will not speak if you will let me hold your hand. I thought in the fever that we were parted.'
'I have never left your side, my child, day or night,' said Lady
Annabel, not without agitation.
'All this time! all these days and nights! No one would do that but you, mamma. You think only of me.'
'You repay me by your love, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, feeling that her daughter ought not to speak, yet irresistibly impelled to lead out her thoughts.
'How can I help loving you, my dear mamma?'
'You do love me, you do love me very much; do you not, sweet child?'
'Better than all the world,' replied Venetia to her enraptured parent. 'And yet, in the fever I seemed to love some one else: but fevers are like dreams; they are not true.'