It seemed useless to try to follow her on her unknown road. No one could guess in what direction she had gone. Tender-hearted little Gracie cried over her departure; Mrs. Brierly felt very anxious and uneasy, but they could only wait. And it was three days before any news came. It was brought, at last, by an odd messenger. A market-man stopped with his wagon before the house, and, ringing the bell, asked to see the mistress, and was shown upstairs.
"Did a young girl, sort of delicate lookin', leave you lately, ma'am?"
"Yes, on Tuesday morning. Can you tell me any thing of her?"
"Well, you see, I get up nigh about in the middle of the night to get things ready for market, and Wednesday morning I found a girl lying in a dead faint on my barn floor. I called my wife, and we brought her to, and wife asked her where she came from. 'Mrs. Brierly's, No. 775 Tremont Street,' she answered, straight enough; and then she went off again, and the next time we brought her to there was no more sense to be got out of her. She just kept saying over something about finding the country, and 'it ain't there.'
"I had to come off to market, but we carried her into the house, and in the middle of the forenoon wife see the doctor goin' by, and she jest called to him. He said it was brain fever; and she don't get any better; and wife said I'd better stop at 775, and if there was a Mrs. Brierly here, why, I could let her know. We live at Highville, about fifteen miles from Boston; and if you ask for Job Smith's you'll find my house."
So poor little Ruthy had walked all those lonesome miles to find the country that Gifford saw, and had found, instead, pain and weariness, and who knew what more?
That day Mrs. Brierly drove out there, and took Nurse Morris with her; Ruthy recognized neither of them, and at length Mrs. Brierly drove sadly away, leaving Nurse Morris behind to care for the sick child, as busy Mrs. Job Smith, with all her kindliness, was unable to do.
And after a while the fever wore itself out, and Ruthy, a white wraith of a girl, was carried back into the chamber of peace, where the country Gifford saw was hanging on the wall. But the days went by, and the spring came slowly up that way, and the young summer followed, and Ruthy was still a pale, white wraith, and grew no rosier and no stronger.
"Do get well, Ruthy," loving little Gracie used to say, "and we'll take you to find the country." But Ruthy would shake her head with a slow, mournful motion, and answer,—