Olivia's thoughts went back to her childhood as she sat there. A hundred instances of Aunt Madge's affection and devotion recurred to her. She remembered how the sprightly young aunt used to run up to the nursery with some new toy or gaily-dressed doll that she had purchased out of her scanty savings, for Aunt Madge had been a daily governess, too. She could recall the Sunday afternoons when she sat in her lap and the beautiful voice sang to her or told her stories,—Joseph and his brethren and Daniel in the lions' den,—or on other days dear old fairy stories such as children love. She had been her bridesmaid, too, and had grown very fond of the honest, sturdy Scotchman whom his wife so tenderly idealised.
"Uncle Fergus was a good, kind man," she thought, "but he was not all that Aunt Madge imagined him. Most people would not have called him interesting, but he was devoted to her. What a bright creature she was until little Malcolm died. That was the first of her troubles. What a happy home theirs had been, but it was Aunt Madge who had been the heart of the house, who had organised and planned. Uncle Fergus had never originated anything.
"And she loved him as dearly as I love Marcus," she went on. "And yet when she lost him there was not a murmuring word.
"'I thought it was too good to last,' she once said to me, 'but my widow's cruse will never be empty. I have the sweetest memories, and by-and-by I shall have my treasures again. Do you know I often pray, Livy, that I may not long so much to die? God's will, not mine, even in this.'
"Oh, Aunt Madge, dear Aunt Madge, I cannot spare you yet," murmured Olivia more than once that night, for it is hard for human affection to rid itself of selfishness.
When Olivia brought Deb a cup of tea at seven o'clock, the good creature seemed quite shocked. "To think I have slept all these hours," she said, in a dazed voice.
"Miss Olive, why did you not wake me long ago? You are fit to drop, and what will Dr. Luttrell say?" but Olivia shook her head with a faint smile.
"I will lie down now and get a nap. Deb, I am sure she is no worse; she has taken all Dr. Randolph ordered, and though she has not spoken, she seemed to me a shade less exhausted;" but, though Deb would not endorse this, Olivia felt certain that she was right.
She was sitting at her late breakfast, when Marcus called to see how they had spent the night. And her account evidently relieved him. He waited to hear Dr. Randolph's opinion. Olivia came back to him as soon as possible.
"Oh, Marcus," she said, the tears rushing to her eyes, "Dr. Randolph says that the exhaustion is not quite so great, and he owned frankly that he was afraid last night how he should find her this morning. We are to go on just the same. Everything depends on frequent nourishment; he thinks the heart is a little stronger, but she must not be moved at all. 'We must see what nature and rest will do,' he said to me; 'do not relax your efforts, we are not out of the woods yet.' He is coming again about four."