“Oh, thank God you have come, missie!” cried the woman, hastening up. “I was just saying to Gregg that I would go off to try to find you. Though he did say as fine folks was never at home this time of year. The poor lamb keeps calling and calling for Miss Madge, till it’s pitiful to hear. It don’t seem as though she could go quiet till she’s seen you again!”
“Do you mean little Allumette?” cried Madge breathlessly. “Is she ill?”
“I’m afeard she’s dying, miss. She’s had the fever on her a long while now, but she wouldn’t give way. She kept saying as Miss Madge was a-goin’ to send for her into the country, and she fought and fought against it, till she could fight no more. If she could only ha’ bin got away a week or two earlier—ah! that would ha’ made all the difference. But maybe the Lord knows best. ’Tis a hard world we live in. The tender lambs are best in His keeping maybe!”
Madge felt as though a cold hand were clutching at her heart.
“Can I see the child?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes, miss, for sure; the fever ain’t one of the catching kind—not to folks as don’t live down about here. The children get it, but grown-up folks take no harm from them. There’s abin a many little one die down here this summer, and the poor lambie up there will be the next!”
They went into that wretched attic, and stood beside the child’s bed. She was the only sick one there now, the other children having either died or recovered.
Madge felt the hot tears rising in her eyes as she saw the white, wasted face, and saw the restless, fever-stricken tossings of the child she had always seen before with a laugh in her eyes and a bright responsive smile upon her lips. She would have spoken her name as she bent over her, but no voice came. The dim eyes were roving round and round in the listlessness of fever. Words began to form upon the parched lips.
“Please, dear Lord Jesus, let Miss Madge remember! Please let her remember. I do try to be patient; but I am so tired! If I could go where she said I should be able to rest. Please help her to remember!”
“Allumette! Allumette!” cried Madge, with a note of almost passionate entreaty in her voice. “Little Allumette, don’t you know me?”