Glancing from the window on the morning of the second day after that which Mrs. Chetwood had spent with them, Mildred saw a countryman passing round toward the kitchen, and in a moment after his voice and Celestia Ann's could be heard in earnest colloquy, the latter interrupted by heavy sobs.
Then she appeared at the door of the nursery with her apron to her eyes and silently beckoned to Mildred.
"What is it?" the latter asked going to her.
"Why my brother's come to fetch me home, and I'll have to go, bad as I hate to leave you; for if I do say it that shouldn't, I don't see how you're agoin' to git along without me."
"Nor I," said Mildred, aghast. "O, Celestia Ann, must you go?"
"Yes; can't help it; for they're all down with the fever, 'cept mother (and she's poorly) and this brother that's come after me; and he's got a chill on him now. So I'll have to pick up my duds and be off right away."
"Yes, of course you must go to your own when they need you," said Mildred; "unless they could get some one else. O, Celestia Ann, don't you think it possible they could?"
"No; I know they can't, Miss Mildred; there's no help to be got these days for love or money; and the Lord only knows what's to become of us all!
"Sam says there's several died in our neighborhood a'ready, just for want o' good nussin and proper victuals; so the doctor says."
"And just so it will be with us," sobbed Mildred sinking into a chair and covering her face with her hands. "I cannot nurse them all properly, and cook what they need to eat; and oh, it is so terrible to think they must die for want of it."