"They are speaking of me," thought Christian. "I can't live through this; I can't endure it. What is to be done?"
They had scarcely gone to their own rooms before the door was opened and little Jessie entered. In a twinkling there was a change of scene. She turned on the electric light. She glanced toward the bed, and the flushed face and tear-stained eyes of the girl she loved best in the entire school met her gaze.
"This will never do," thought Jessie.
She put a match to the fire, which was already laid in the grate, and soon the crackling of the wood and the cheerful light of the blaze transformed the room. Then she went up to the bed.
"My child," she said, "how cold you are! Let me just put this eider-down over you."
She wrapped it around Christian, who shivered with a sort of forlorn sense of comfort.
"My poor, dear child, you are ill."
"My head aches," said Christian. "It has been aching all day."
"What can be wrong, darling?"
"Everything, Miss Jessie."