"She's took to her bed!" she said. "I darsn't let you in; it'd be as much as my life is wuth and her'n too, the state she's in. I think she's out of her head, Mis' Pryor. There! she's singin' this minute; do hear her! Oh, my poor lady! I wish Doctor Stedman would come!"
Over the stairs came floating, in a high-pitched thread of voice, a scrap of eldritch song:
"Tiddy hi, toddy ho,
Tiddy hi hum,
Thus was it when Barbara Popkins was young!"
Mrs. Pryor hastened back and told Miss Vesta that their aunt was delirious, and had probably but a few hours to live. Poor Miss Vesta! she would have broken through any interdict and flown to her aunt's side; but she herself was housed with a heavy, feverish cold, and Doctor Stedman's commands were absolute. "You may say what you like to your friend," he said, "but you must obey your physician. I know what I am about, and I forbid you to leave the house!"
At these words Miss Vesta leaned back on her sofa-pillow with a gentle sigh. James did know what he was about, of course; and—since he had privately assured her that he did not consider Mrs. Tree in any danger, and since she really felt quite unable to stand, much less to go out—it was very comfortable to be absolutely forbidden to do so. Still it was not a pleasant day for Miss Vesta. Mrs. Pryor never left her side, declaring that this duty at least she could and would perform, and Vesta might be assured she would never desert her; and the stream of talk about the Darracott blood, the family portraits, and the astonishing moral obliquity of most persons except Mrs. Pryor herself, flowed on and around and over Miss Vesta's aching head till she felt that she was floating away on waves of the fluid which is thicker than water.
In the afternoon a bolt fell. It was about five o'clock, near the time for Doctor Stedman's daily visit, when the door flew open without knock or ring, and Tragedy appeared on the threshold in the person of Mrs. Malvina Weight. Speechless, she stood in the doorway and beckoned. She had been running, a method of locomotion for which nature had not intended her; her breath came in quick gasps, and her face was as the face of a Savoy cabbage.
"For pity's sake!" cried Mrs. Pryor. "What is the matter, Malvina?"
"She's gone!" gasped Mrs. Weight.
"Who's gone? Do speak up! What do you mean, Malvina Weight?"
"Mis' Tree! there's crape on the door. I see it—three minutes ago—with these eyes! I run all the way—just as I was; I've got my death, I expect—palpitations—I had to come. She's gone in her sins! Oh, girls, ain't it awful?"