CONVERSATION VI.
MIDNIGHT.
One night, while Miss Anne was undressing Lucy, to put her to bed, she thought that her voice had a peculiar sound, somewhat different from usual. It was not hoarseness, exactly, and yet it was such a sort of sound as made Miss Anne think that Lucy had taken cold. She asked her if she had not taken cold, but Lucy said no.
Lucy slept in Miss Anne’s room, in a little trundle-bed. Late in the evening, just before Miss Anne herself went to bed, she looked at Lucy, to see if she was sleeping quietly; and she found that she was.
But in the night Miss Anne was awaked by hearing Lucy coughing with a peculiar hoarse and hollow sound, and breathing very hard. She got up, and went to her trundle-bed.
“Lucy,” said she, “what’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Lucy, “only I can’t breathe very well.”
Here Lucy began to cough again; and the cough sounded so hoarse and hollow, that Miss Anne began to be quite afraid that Lucy was really sick. She put on a loose robe, and carried her lamp out into the kitchen, and lighted it,—and then came back into her room again. She found that Lucy was no better, and so she went to call her mother.
She went with the lamp, and knocked at her door; and when she answered, Miss Anne told her that Lucy did not seem to be very well,—that she had a hoarse cough, and that she breathed hard.
“O, I’m afraid it is the croup,” she exclaimed; “let us get up immediately.”
“We will get right up, and come and see her,” said Lucy’s father.