I soon had coffee made that was as black as the night without. Instead of calling Miss Warren, I took a tray from the dining-room, and carried it with several cups upstairs.
"Bring it here!" called the doctor.
I entered Mrs. Yocomb's room, and found that she had quite fully revived, and that Reuben had supported his father thither also. He reclined on the lounge, and his usually ruddy face was very pale. Both he and his wife appeared almost helpless; but the doctor had succeeded in arresting, by the use of ice, the distressing nausea that had followed consciousness. They looked at me in a bewildered manner as I entered, and could not seem to account for my presence at once. Nor did they, apparently, try to do so long, for their eyes turned toward little Zillah with a deeply troubled and perplexed expression, as if they were beginning to realize that the child was very ill, and that events of an extraordinary character had happened.
"Let me taste the coffee," said the doctor. "Ah! that's the kind—black and strong. See how it will bring them around," and he made Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb each swallow a cup of it.
"Miss Warren," he called, "give some of this to Miss Adah, if she is quiet enough to take it. I cannot leave the child."
Miss Warren came at once. Her face was clouded and anxious, and she looked with eager solicitude toward the still unconscious Zillah, whose hands Reuben was chafing.
"I think Miss Adah will soon be better," she replied to the doctor's inquiring glance, and she went back to her charge.
"Take some yourself," said the physician to me, in a low tone. "I fear we are going to have a serious time with the little girl."
"You do not realize," I urged, "that Miss Warren needs keeping up almost as truly as any of them."
"You'll have to take care of her then," said the doctor hastily; "she seems to be doing well herself, and doing well for others. Take her some coffee, and say that I said she must drink it."