Molly brought it and ran down with the note.
"Don't stay late, Morton," she urged in a worried tone; "if Sara ever was sick, I should say she was going to be now."
CHAPTER XX.
WEAKNESS.
Molly was confirmed in her surmise; for in an hour Sara was in a burning fever, and there was little sleep in the house that night. To have Sara ill was unprecedented—almost unbearable—and the whole household was visibly affected by it. Morton's face settled into a gravity which nothing could move, and Molly's dimpled visage had never looked so long and care-full.
Hetty bustled up and down, important and anxious, while Sam stood about in the hall, and asked everybody who passed along "how she wor a-doin' now."
The doctor came, looked wise, talked about malaria, exposure to the heat and over-fatigue, left some pills and powders, and went away again— after which the house settled down to that alert silence, so different from the restful quiet of an ordinary night. Sara, tossing to and fro in the fiery grasp of fever, moaned and talked, Hetty and Molly watching alternately beside her, while Morton tried to sleep in the next room, only to start from frightful dreams to the more harrowing reality that his beloved sister was actually and painfully ill.
It was a sharp illness, but not of long duration. The fever was broken up on the fourteenth day, but it left a very weak and ghostly Sara to struggle back to health once more. Still, there were no relapses, thanks to good care, for Hetty had been faithfulness itself, while Molly had settled down to her new duties with a steadiness no one would have expected. As for Morton, he would have brought up half the drugstore, if he had been permitted, and was made perfectly content whenever allowed to share the night-watches, which was seldom, as he had to work all day. In these Hetty was soon relieved by those members of the circle who had become personal friends of the girls; and as there was little to do, except give the medicines regularly, they thus managed well without calling in a regular nurse.
Three weeks from the day of her seizure Sara began to sit up in bed, looking once more something like the girl of old, though she still talked (to quote Molly) as if she had hot pebbles in her mouth, and the veins on her temples were much too clearly defined beneath the white skin.
Thus sitting, one delightful day, she read a note from Bertha, which had been awaiting her some time. It was a rapturous expression of thanks for the good place she had found with Mrs. Searle, and begged that she might see her as soon as Sara was able. Molly said, as she handed it, "She has been here two or three times, begging to do anything for you that was needed, and I promised you should see her just as soon as possible."