Her father had just come from out of doors, and now sat in his big armchair, with his hands near the blaze, for the cold had increased with the setting of the sun.
It had gone down half an hour before, leaving a great crimson gash in the western sky, above which ran a bank of smoky gray clouds, where the evening star was beginning to blink.
It had been a day of thawing. The sun had started the icy rime to running from the trees and shrubs, and melted the snow upon the roofs, while the white covering of the land was burned away here and there, until it seemed to be out at knees and elbows, where showed the brown and dirty green of the soil.
But an intense cold had come with the darkness, turning the melted snow to crystal, and hanging glittering pendants from everything.
"I wish Cousin Dot was all well, the way she used to be," sighed small 'Bitha, sitting with her rosy face so rumpled by the pressure of the little supporting palms as to remind one of the cherubs seen upon ancient tombstones.
She spoke in a voice too low for any one to hear save those nearest her; and Mary gave a warning "Hush," as she glanced at the abstracted face of her father-in-law, who was gazing intently at the flames leaping from the logs.
"She 'll not hear what I say," the child went on, now with a touch of impatience. "She often does n't hear me when I speak to her. Many times I ask her something over and over again, when she is looking straight at me; and then she will act as if she'd been asleep, and ask me what I've been saying."
"Your cousin was very ill, you must remember, 'Bitha," her grandame explained; "and it takes her a long time to recover, and be like herself again."
But the child shook her blonde head with an air of profound wisdom.
"I think it is only that bad medicine of Dr. Paine's," she said. "When I am ill, I shall ask Tyntie to fetch me a medicine man, such as the Indians have. I should like to see him dance and beat his drum."