“I cannot believe it! I will not believe it! See how sweetly she sleeps! how comfortably! how free from suffering!”
“Yes—but, my dear Captain Fairfax, there would be more hope if there were more suffering—however, the case may be much more favorable than it appears to me now; I cannot fully judge of it until she wakes.”
“Allow me to arouse her, then! Nay, I wish to do it! I have not spoken to her yet! Let me wake her now!”
“By no means! It might prove fatal. Indeed, you must be very careful. Her life hangs by a thread. Sleep will do her more good now than anything else. When she awakes naturally, you may send for me at once.” And so saying, the doctor took leave, without even writing a prescription.
Soon after he left the house she opened her eyes again, and seeing Frank, smiled faintly, and murmured—
“My own—my dearest—dearest husband.” And in an instant her senses seemed swallowed up again in sleep, which lasted half an hour, at the end of which she awoke again, and looked around in uneasiness, and breathed, half aloud,—“My child—my baby—my little Fan—” and then sank away again, as if she were too feeble to retain her hold on consciousness.
“What is she talking about, dear mother?” inquired Frank, in the extremity of anxiety, when he heard her words.
Mrs. Fairfax shook her head, and said she did not know. But the woman who waited in the chamber came forward, and said that if her mistress would excuse her interfering, she would tell them what the young lady meant.
“Speak on, then, at once, in the name of the Lord!” exclaimed Frank, impatiently.
Mrs. Fairfax endorsed his order. And then the woman informed her mistress that she had known the sick young lady all the winter by sight—that she had been there at the house to ask for sewing—that she took in sewing for a living—that she lodged at the cabinet-maker’s, over the way—and that she had a little girl almost two years old, who was no doubt at the cabinet-maker’s now, which she supposed was what had made the mother look around, and inquire so anxiously.