"Don't you think, I must know that as well as you? There! there's that rush light gone out, and you never put any water in the tin; a pretty nurse you make, now I shall have that smell in my nose all night. You must have set it in a draught. What business has a rush light to go out in a couple of hours? I wonder."
Lucy put the obnoxious night shade out of the room, and went back to the bedside. For a long time she was unsuccessful, but at last Miss Webster consented to have her foot dressed, and even cheered her young nurse by the acknowledgment that she did it very well, considering; and thus the night wore away.
Quite early Emilie was at her post, and was grieved to see that Miss Webster still looked haggard and suffering, and as if she had not slept. In answer to her inquiries, Lucy said that she had no rest all night.
"Rest! and how can I rest, Miss Schomberg? I can't afford to lose my lodgers, and lose them I shall."
"Only try and keep quiet," said Emilie, "and I will see that they do not suffer from want of attendance. You cannot help them, do consent to leave all thought, all management, to those who can think and manage. May aunt Agnes come and nurse you, and attend to the housekeeping?"
"Yes," was reluctantly, and not very graciously uttered.
"Well then, Lucy will have time to attend to you. I would gladly nurse you myself, but you know I may not neglect Miss Parker; now take this draught, and try and sleep."
"Miss Schomberg," said the poor woman, "you won't lack friends to nurse you on a sick bed; I have none."
"Miss Webster, if I were to be laid on a sick bed, and were to lose aunt Agnes, I should be alone in a country that is not my own country, without money and without friends; but we may both of us have a friend who sticketh closer than a brother, think of him, ma'am, now, and ask him to make your bed in your sickness."
She took the feverish hand of the patient as she said this, who, bursting into a flood of tears, replied, "Ah, Miss Schomberg! I don't deserve it of you, and that is the truth; but keep my hand, it feels like a friend's, hold it, will you, and I think I shall sleep a little while;" and Emilie stood and held her hand, stood till she was faint and weary, and then withdrawing it as gently as ever mother unloosed an infant's hold, she withdrew, shaded the light from the sleeper's eyes, and stole out of the room, leaving the sufferer at ease, and in one of those heavy sleeps which exhaustion and illness often produce.