"Yes!" said Mrs. Howe—"yes—no—how provoking! I don't believe it—I'll go down myself, Patty."
Throwing a large cashmere shawl over her robe-de-chambre, Mrs. Howe went reluctantly down stairs.
The baby did look "horrid," as Patty had said, and Rose stood over it wringing her hands.
"I don't see what you have come back for," grumbled Mrs. Howe, turning her back upon the convulsed baby.
"What shall I do? oh, tell me what to do for him!" said the young mother—"he will die! Charley will die!"
"All the better for him, if he should," said Mrs. Howe.
"Oh," said Rose, kneeling at her feet, "you have lost a little one, can not you pity me."
Even this touching appeal would have been powerless to move Mrs. Howe, had not the twitch of the bell-wire announced a visitor at the front door. Hastily running to Patty, she said, "Take that child up stairs and lay it on your bed. I am sure I don't know what to do with him; my nerves are all unstrung; take him away; I suppose he will come out of his fit before long."
Patty stooped to take Charley in her arms, but Rose anticipated her, and carried the poor tortured child up into the attic. He came out of that fit only to go into another, and Rose, agonized beyond endurance, fell senseless across the bed.