We got him to bed as fast as we could. There was no going down to dessert that evening, so Miss Bess and Miss Lalage set to work to help me, like the womanly little ladies they were; one of them running downstairs to see about plenty of hot water for a good bath and hot bottles, and the other fetching the under housemaid to see to a fire in his room. I doubt if he had ever had one before. Bedroom fires were not in my lady's rule, and I don't hold with them myself, except in illness or extra cold weather.
He cheered up a little, and even laughed at the fuss we made. And before his uncle and aunt returned he was sound asleep, looking quiet and comfortable, so that I didn't think it needful to say anything to them that night. But long before morning, for I crept upstairs to his room every hour or two, I saw that it was not going off as I had hoped. He started and moaned in his sleep, and once or twice when I found him awake, he seemed almost lightheaded, and as if he hardly knew me. Once I heard him whisper: 'Oh! it hurts so,' as if he could scarcely bear it.
About five o'clock I dressed myself and took up my watch beside him. My lady was an early riser; by eight o'clock, in answer to a message from me, she was with us herself in her dressing-gown. Master Francis was awake.
'O my lady!' I said, 'I'd no thought of bringing you up so early, and you were late last night too.' For they had had a long drive. 'It was only that I dursn't take upon me to send for the doctor without asking.'
'No, no, of course not,' she said. And indeed that was a liberty my lady would not have been pleased with any one's taking. 'Do you really think it necessary?'
The poor child was looking a little better just then, the pain was not so bad. He seemed quiet and dreamy-like, though his face was flushed and his eyes very bright.
'Auntie!' he said, smiling a very little; 'how pretty you look!'
