The widow seemed at first so much revived by the treatment which Mr. Burke ordered, and her cousin Marshall administered, that there was room for hope that the shock would leave her little worse than it found her; and the benevolent surgeon went home at six o’clock to refresh himself, bearing tidings to his sister, not only that the fire was extinguished, but that it appeared to have done no irreparable mischief beyond the destruction of property. He was not fully aware, however, in how weak a state his patient had previously been.
“Mammy!” said little Ann Bridgeman, who sat on a low stool, with a blue apron of her aunt’s over her shoulders, her only covering except her shift, “Mammy, there goes the church bell.”
“Hush!” said Jane, the eldest, who was more considerate.
“Mammy is awake,” persisted Ann, looking again into the curtainless bed to see that the widow’s eyes were open. “Do you hear the bell, mammy? And we cannot go to church.”
“’Tis a strange Sunday, indeed, my child,” replied her mother. “When I prayed last night, after all our work was done, that this might be a day of rest, I little thought what would happen.”
Her cousin, Mrs. Marshall, came to her and begged that she would try to rest, and not to trouble herself with uneasy thoughts.
“My mind is so tossed about!” replied the poor woman. “It distracts me to think what we are to do next. And there sit the poor children without so much as a petticoat to wear; and the room is all as if the fire was roaring about me; and a letter from my husband, the only one I ever had, that I thought to have carried to my grave with me, is burned; and I might as well have saved it, if I had had a minute’s thought; and——”
The sick woman burst into a hysterical cry which shook her frame so, that her cousin began to think how she could calm her. She ventured on a bold experiment when she found that her patient’s talk still ran upon the letter, and that the consolations of Mrs. Bell, who now came to the bedside, only made the matter worse.
“Well now, I wonder,” said Mrs. Bell, “that you should trouble yourself so about a letter, when you will be sure to remember what is in it. One would think it was a bank note by the way you cry after it.”
“A bank note!” cried the poor woman. “I would have set light to my house with a handful of bank notes, if I had had them, sooner than lose that letter; and yet nobody would think so by the way I left it behind me. There it was in the box with my rent, and with my mother’s gold thimble, nigh at hand as I got out of bed, and I might just as well have saved it. O Lord! what a wretch I am!” she cried. “Take the children away! Don’t let them come near me any more. Lord forgive me! Lord have mercy upon me!” and she raved fearfully.