“Oh, the ring came, after all!” she said in a glad whisper, “and perhaps it was that that made her better!”
She put her hand on her mother's gently. A terrified shiver, a warning shudder, shook the girl from head to foot at the chilling touch. A dread presence she had never met before suddenly took shape. It filled the room; stifled the cry on her lips; froze her steps to the floor, stopped the beating of her heart.
Just then the door opened.
“Oh, doctor! Come quick!” she sobbed, stretching out her hand for help, and then covering her eyes. “Come close! Look at mother! Is she better—or is she dead?”
The doctor put one hand on the shoulder of the shrinking child, and touched the woman with the other.
“She is better!” he said gently, “and she is dead.”
Tenth Chronicle. REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES
Rebecca was sitting by the window in her room at the Wareham Female Seminary. She was alone, as her roommate, Emma Jane Perkins, was reciting Latin down below in some academic vault of the old brick building.
A new and most ardent passion for the classics had been born in Emma Jane's hitherto unfertile brain, for Abijah Flagg, who was carrying off all the prizes at Limerick Academy, had written her a letter in Latin, a letter which she had been unable to translate for herself, even with the aid of a dictionary, and which she had been apparently unwilling that Rebecca, her bosom friend, confidant, and roommate, should render into English.