"Oh, but I daren't let go my hold of the branch," said poor Margaret; "and my head is so dizzy. Dear Grace, how shall I ever get down again? Won't you help me?"
"Not now! Now it is necessary that you should stay for a space, and learn to accept this, as other situations. Begin gradually to look down and about you. Fix your eye on that apple-tree, the one with the hump-back; then let your eyes travel slowly, slowly, over the ground, till they come here, under our feet. There! you see it is easy. Is the dizziness gone?"
"It is certainly much better. I think perhaps, in a little while, I may get used to it, but I am quite sure I never shall like it. Why do you like to climb so, Grace? Why is it more comfortable to sit in a tree than on a pleasant, safe seat on the grass?"
Grace shrugged her shoulders. "Who can say?" she said. "I have always supposed that the soul of my grandam inhabited a bird. Shakespeare! And you know I am an owl myself in regular, if not in good, standing. What would you? It is my nature. And how do we find the Patient to-day? Did she tell you that she left her bed twice yesterday?"
"Yes. Grace, it frightens me, all this wild work. Are you sure what you are doing?"
"I am sure that there is nothing the matter with this lady. I think she can be brought back to health by foul means, but not by fair. I think that in this case the end justifies the means. Voilà!"
Margaret looked at her earnestly; she met a gaze so full, so clear, so brave, that her own spirit rose to meet it.
Suddenly Grace held out her hand. "Come!" she said. "Trust me, Margaret! I am not a hobgoblin, though I may pose as one now and then. Trust me; and—by and by—try to love me a little, for I loved you before ever I saw you."
Margaret took the slender hand and pressed it cordially. "I will trust you!" she said. "I have doubted, Grace, I confess; doubted and feared; but now I shall not fear any more. Only—oh, my dear, don't frighten her more than you have to. She really thinks you are—not right; and some of the things she told me were certainly rather terrifying. That trance, or whatever it was—well—what was it, Grace?"
Grace laughed, a laugh so merry and clear that the robins left off eating cherries to see what the sound might be. "What was it? My child, it was nothing. I fell down, I shut my eyes—again, voilà! Her mind was prepared for the marvellous, and she found it. Nothing simpler than that."