Presently Polly spoke in a whisper.
"Are you asleep, Bessie?"
"No," answered her sister, "I can't sleep for thinking."
"I have been thinking, too," continued Polly, "and I don't believe it was the wolves after all. At any rate, they did not eat him up, or how could he be in the hospital?"
"I never thought of that," said Bessie. "But don't you remember our hearing them outside when he went away?"
"It might have been the wind," answered Polly. "It's very high again to-night. Listen to it—how it shakes the doors and windows."
Bessie said that she did not want to listen. And, feeling somewhat reassured by her sister's suggestions, she buried her little head beneath the clothes, and was soon fast asleep.
Dr. Harding called on the following day. He found Matthew worse, and saw at a glance how it was with him.
"Nothing, catching eh, doctor?" asked the sick man, with a grim smile.
"Nothing of the kind," replied Dr. Harding, shaking his head.