At sight of his nurse Willie had slid from Alice’s lap and with his arm around Sam’s neck, was lisping the only words he as yet could speak, “Up, up, Tam, Willie up,” meaning that he must be taken. Struggling to his feet Sam took Willie on his shoulder, then with another blessing on Miss Ellis and a pitying glance at Hugh, he left the room, Willie looking down from his elevated position triumphant as a young lord, and crowing in childish glee as he buried his hands in Uncle Sam’s white wool.
In every move which Willie made there was a decidedly Richards’ air, a manner such as would have been expected from John Richards’ son playing in the halls of Terrace Hill.
“Is Willie like his father?” Alice asked as the door closed after Sam.
“Yes,” and a shadow flitted over Adah’s face.
She did not like to talk of Willie’s father and was glad when Hugh at last claimed their attention. They watched together that night, tending Hugh so carefully that when the morning broke and the physician came, he pronounced the symptoms so much better that there was hope, he said, if the faithful nursing were continued. Still Hugh remained delirious, lying often in a kind of stupor from which nothing had power to arouse him unless it were Alice’s voice, whispering in his ear the name of “Golden Hair,” or the cry of Rocket, who for an entire week waited patiently by the block, his face turned towards the door whence he expected his master to appear. During the day he would neither eat nor drink, but Claib always found the food and drink gone, which was left in the stall at night, showing that Rocket must have passed the hours of darkness in his old, accustomed place. With the dawn of day, however, he returned to his post by the block, and more than one eye filled with tears at sight of the noble brute waiting so patiently and calling so pitifully for one who never came. But Rocket grew tired at last, and they missed him one morning at Spring Bank, while Col. Tiffton on that same morning was surprised and delighted to find him standing demurely by the gate and offering no resistance when they led him to the stable which he never tried to leave again. He seemed to have given Hugh up and a part of the affection felt for his young master was transferred to the colonel, who petted and caressed the beautiful animal, sighing the while as he thought how improbable it was that Hugh ever could redeem him, and how if he did not, the time was coming soon when Rocket must again change masters, and when Harney’s long cherished wish to possess him would undoubtedly be gratified.
CHAPTER XXI.
ALICE AND ADAH.
At Alice’s request, Adah and Sam staid altogether at Spring Bank, but Alice was the ruling power—Alice, the one whom Chloe and Claib consulted; Alice to whom Aunt Eunice looked for counsel, Alice, who remembered all the doctor’s directions, taking the entire charge of Hugh’s medicines herself—and Alice, who wrote to Mrs. Worthington, apprising her of Hugh’s illness. They hoped he was not dangerous, she said, but he was very sick, and Mrs. Worthington would do well to come at once. She did not mention ’Lina, but the idea never crossed her mind that a sister could stay away from choice when a brother was so ill; and it was with unfeigned surprise that she one morning saw Mrs. Worthington and Lulu alighting at the gate, but no ’Lina with them.
“She was so happy at Saratoga,” Mrs. Worthington said, when a little over the first flurry of her arrival. “So happy, too, with Mrs. Richards that she could not tear herself away, unless her mother should find Hugh positively dangerous, in which case she should, of course, come at once.”
This was the mother’s charitable explanation, made with a bitter sigh as she recalled ’Lina’s heartless anger when the letter was received, as if Hugh were to blame, as indeed, ’Lina seemed to think he was.
“What business had he to come home so quick? If he’d staid in New Orleans, he might not have had the fever. Any way, she wasn’t going home. Alice had said he was not dangerous yet, so if her mother went, that was enough;” and utterly forgetful of the many weary hours and days when Hugh had watched by her, the heartless girl had stifled every feeling of self reproach, and hurried her mother off, entrusting to her care a note for Alice, who, she felt, would wonder at her singular conduct.