Mrs. Lane placed her hand over the tired, faintly-beating heart. "She is only faint," she said assuringly, a note of intense relief in her voice. "She is coming round. Run and fetch me some water, dear, and open that window as you pass."
So granny, when she presently opened her eyes and looked about her, found Mona on one side of her and her old friend on the other; and both were looking at her with tender anxious eyes, and faces full of gladness at her recovery.
The old feud was as dead as though it had never existed.
"It's like going to sleep in a world of worries and waking up in a new one." The poor old soul sighed contentedly, as she lay with the stars looking in on her, and the scent of the flowers wafting up to her through the open window. "It was too bad, though, to be calling you up in the night—out of your bed. I'm very much obliged to you, Mrs. Lane, I—I'm very glad to see you."
"Not as glad as I am to come, I reckon," her neighbour smiled back at her, "we are all going to start afresh again from to-day, ain't we? So it's as well to begin the day early, and make it as long as we can!"
CHAPTER IX.
Granny was much better, and was downstairs again, but she was weak and very helpless still. She was sad too, and depressed. The last few weeks had shaken her confidence in herself, her spirit was strong enough still, but more than once lately her body had failed her. When, in her old way, she had said that she would do this, or that, or the other thing, she had found out after all, that she could not. Her body had absolutely refused to obey her.
"I ain't dependent on other folks yet!" she had said sharply, and had afterwards found out that she was, and the discovery alarmed her. It saddened her, and broke her spirit.
"I ought to be in a home. I'd rather be in one, or—or be dead, than be a burden on other folks," she moaned.