[pg 232]And he was right, although the old clock in the hall told the hour of midnight ere she roused from the deep slumber which had seemed so much like the long last sleep of death. Her first words were for "water, water," and as she put up her hand to take the offered glass, Dr. Gordon whispered to Dr. Lacey: "She is better, but must not see you tonight."
In a twinkling Mr. Middleton's large hand was laid on Dr. Lacey's shoulder, and hurrying him into the adjoining room, he said, "Stay here till mornin', and neither breathe nor stir!"
Dr. Lacey complied with the request as far as it was possible, though never seemed a night so long, and never dawned a morning so bright as did the succeeding one, when through the house the joyous tidings ran that the crisis was past, and Fanny would live.
In the course of the morning, Fanny asked Kate, who alone was attending her, if Dr. Lacey were not there?
"What makes you think so?" asked Kate.
"Because," answered Fanny, "I either heard him or dreamed that I did."
"And if he is here, could you bear to see him now?"
"Oh, yes, yes," was the eager answer, and the next moment Dr. Lacey was by her side.
Intuitively Kate left the room, consequently we have no means of knowing what occurred during that interview, when Dr. Lacey, as it were, received back from the arms of death his Fanny, whose recovery from that time was sure though slow. Mr. Middleton, in the exuberance of his joy at having his Sunshine restored, seemed hardly sane, but frequently kept muttering to himself, "Yes, yes, I remember—I'll do it, only give me a little time"; at the same time his elbow moved impatiently, as if nudging off some unseen visitor. What it was that he remembered and would do, was not known for several days and then he informed his wife that when at first he feared that Fanny should not live, he had racked his brain to know why this fresh evil was brought upon him, and had concluded that it was partly to punish him for his ill-treatment of Julia when living, and partly because that now she was dead he had neglected to purchase for her any gravestones. "And I promised," said he, "that if she was spar'd, I'd buy as nice a gravestun as I would if 'twas Sunshine." Three weeks from that time there stood by the mound in the little graveyard a plain, handsome monument, on which was simply inscribed, "Julia, aged twenty."
One after another those who had been with Fanny during her illness departed to their homes. Frank Cameron lingered [pg 233] several weeks in Frankfort. Florence, too, was there with some relatives. Now, reader, if you value our friendship, you will not accuse him of being fickle. He had loved Fanny long and faithfully, but he knew the time was coming when he would see her the wife of another. What wonder was it, then, if he suffered his eye occasionally to rest admiringly upon Florence Woodburn's happy face, or that he frequently found himself trying to trace some resemblance between the dark hazel of Florence's eyes and the deep blue of Fanny's?