She bore the basin carefully and steadily into the chamber, up to the bedside of the patient, and called his name clearly:
"Papa, dear, will you take a little of this for me?"
She watched him narrowly as he aroused himself to respond.
"He sleeps all the time, to-day," whispered Eunice.
There was a dull glow in his half-open eyes, and he put his hand to his head, confusedly, staring in his younger daughter's face, as she repeated her request.
"It is Jessie, papa! You have been dreaming, and are not yet awake. Here is your beef tea. May I give you a spoonful or two?"
"I thought you were your mother, child!" he said, smiling faintly but lovingly at her. "I was dreaming, as you say."
She fed him as she would an infant, but he would take only a few spoonfuls of the nourishment, turned his face away, and fell asleep again instantly.
The doctor's delicate and unenviable duty was half done for him before she joined him in the lower room.
"You consider my father worse?" was the address with which she opened the interview.