“I want teacher! When will she come?” came again from the cracked lips as Hazel sank upon her knees by the bedside.
“I am here, my child,” she said softly, as the burning head was tossed wearily from side to side.
The effect was electrical. The thin arms that had been lying upon the coverlet were raised, and with one ejaculation they were flung round the visitor’s neck, the poor child nestling to her with a cry of joy.
“My poor child!” cried Hazel tenderly. And the weary iteration was heard no more.
“She never made that ado over me,” said the mother discontentedly; but no one seemed to heed her, and she stole downstairs to her work, but came up from time to time to find poor Feelier sleeping softly in Hazel’s arms, her head upon her breast. And when Mrs Potts attempted to unloose the clinging hands that were about “teacher’s neck,” the girl uttered a passionate, impatient cry, and clung the tighter to one who seemed to have come to bring her hope of life.
“It was very imprudent of you to come, Miss Thorne,” said the doctor. “I heard you were here from Mr William Forth Burge. He is waiting below. Suppose you try to lay her down; she seems to be asleep.”
Asleep or awake, poor Feelier would not be separated from her friend, and the doctor unwillingly owned at last that it would be undoing a great deal of good to force her away.
“You have given her a calm sense of rest, for which in her delirium she has been so long striving. I must confess that you have done her more good than I.”
“She will go to sleep soon, perhaps,” said Hazel, “and then leave me of her own accord.”