"In your heart and mine," she answered. "But you mustn't talk, not yet. Shut your eyes, and I will sing you to sleep." And I shut them. And I knew I was in heaven, for heaven isn't a place; it's a feeling, and I had it.
And that's how I met Miss Katherine.
Her father and mother are dead, just like mine. Her father was Judge Trent, and his father once owned half the houses in Yorkburg, but lost them some way, and what he didn't lose Judge Trent did after the war.
When her father died Miss Katherine wouldn't live with either of her brothers, or any of her relations, but went to Baltimore to study to be a nurse. After she graduated she didn't come back for three or four years, and she hadn't been back six months when I was taken sick. And now I sing:
"Praise God from whom that sickness flew."
Sing it inside almost all the time.
Miss Katherine don't have to be a nurse. She has a little money. I don't know how much, she never mentioning money before me; but she has some, for I heard Miss Bray and Mrs. Blamire talking one night when they thought I was asleep; and for once I didn't interrupt or let them know I was awake.
I had been punished so often for speaking when I shouldn't that this time I kept quiet, and when they were through I couldn't sleep. I was so excited I stayed awake all night. And from joy—pure joy.
I had only been back from the hospital a week, and was in the room next to Mrs. Blamire's, where the children who are sick stay, when I heard Miss Bray talking to Mrs. Blamire, and at something she said I sat up in bed. Right or wrong, I tried to hear. I did.
They were sitting in front of the fire, and Miss Bray leaned over and cracked the coals.