"I wonder you didn't keep the bill, and not take it to Mr. James," she said. "I should."
"I did have a little fight about it," said Katie, blushing. "It was a great temptation. I'm not so very good, but"—
"But what?" said Bertie, eagerly, looking at her.
"I think the Lord Jesus helped me. I asked him, and he says he will help us to be good."
"Do you think he would help me?"
"I am sure he would. O Bertie, do ask him! I am so glad!"
"Are you?" said the sick girl, dreamily. But the effort to talk or think longer in her weakened state was too great. She seemed to float away again, and by degrees the same wild look came into her eyes, the tossings began again, and the low mutterings and sharp cries. It was very painful both to see and hear, but Katie was glad to notice that her own name no longer mingled in the confused talk, and the consciousness of wrong-doing toward herself seemed to have passed away.
In the evening the doctor said that the patient had had a relapse, and questioned her young nurse very particularly as to whether she had shown any consciousness; and being told that she had seemed for a little while to be quite herself, he asked if she had spoken. Katie said that she had talked quite rationally about something that had distressed her for some time, but she did not say what that something was.
"Bad," said he; "you should never let a fever patient talk, no matter how much she may try. But I mustn't scold you, I suppose; you are too young for such a responsibility, and your friend there is extremely ill."
Then he went downstairs and consulted Bertie's parents, and the result was that a letter was written to the city aunt begging her to come and help take care of the two sick children. The doctor wrote it himself, stating as delicately as he could the extreme urgency of the case, the inefficiency of the mother, the dangerous illness of the children, and the impossibility of securing any assistance in the care of them except that of an inexperienced little girl, who was herself in constant danger of being added to the list of patients.