Toward morning I was awakened by the noise of a loosened blind, and slipping into a dressing-gown went through the passage to fasten the latch. Passing Nancy's room I heard a moan, and, startled out of myself, listened to hear another, and still another, as though a heart were breaking. There was a light in the room, and through a small window in the door, the curtain of which was drawn a bit aside, I saw the little one whom I would gladly die to save from any pain, lying face down upon the floor, her arms stretched out, the hands clutched tightly together, and her whole body shaking as in mortal illness.
"Nancy, Nancy, let me in! Open the door to me," I cried.
She started to a sitting position, tried to arrange her disordered hair and gown, and I saw her cast a look in the mirror as she came toward the door, to see how far she could make me believe that nothing unusual was the matter with her.
"What is it?" I asked, my heart bursting with love and sympathy as I drew her to my breast.
She turned her eyes toward me, eyes which held the despair in them which only women know.
"Oh," she cried, clutching me to keep from falling, "didn't you see?"
"I saw nothing," I answered.
"I can't speak it," she says; "but another of life's lessons has come to me to-night. Do you remember the time I told you that I had learned something with my head? I learned it with my heart to-night, and it's like to kill me. Oh, what have I done?" she cried, "what have I ever done to deserve such punishment as this?"
"Tell me, Nancy," I said. "There is nothing in God's world that can't be helped by sympathy."