He looked anxiously at the doctor, who replied:
“If she gets no better, I’ll come.”
And then as the door closed upon the Squire, he gave a great pitying groan as he thought how trustful and unsuspicious he was.
Holding fast to the medicine, and repeating the direction, Squire Russell hastened back to the house, finding that Dora had been divested of her soiled garments, and placed in bed, where she already seemed more comfortable, though she kept talking incessantly of the light on the wall which would not let her sleep.
“It’s perfectly dreadful, isn’t it?” Jessie said to Robert, who, ere going home, stepped to the door of Dora’s room. “I’m sure I don’t know what to do. I wish Bell was here.”
Dora heard the name, and said:
“Yes, Bell; she knows, she understands,—she said I ought not to do it. Send for Bell.”
Accordingly Robert was furnished with the necessary directions, and left the house for the telegraph office, just as the Squire entered.
Johnnie was nearly frantic. At first he had seemed to consider that his trip to Europe was prevented, and, boy-like, only was greatly disappointed; but when he was admitted into the room and saw Dora’s burning cheeks and bright, rolling eyes, he forgot everything in his great distress for her.
“Auntie must not die! Oh, she must not die!” he sobbed, feeling a keener pang than any he had known when they brought home his dead mother. Intuitively he seemed to feel that his father’s grief was greater than his own, and keeping close to his side he held his hand, looking up into his face, and whispering occasionally: