“Oh, bless you, Miss Agnes!” said Mr. Fairland, as soon as she opened the door; “set that water running immediately till it is quite hot, and take off this poor child’s stockings and shoes. You see I can do nothing.”
As quickly and as quietly as possible Agnes did as she was directed; and then also, by Mr. Fairland’s direction, took down a bottle of medicine, always kept ready for this purpose in the bath-room, and dropped some of it for him. In a few moments, the shrieks subsided to moans, as Tiney lay with her head back on her father’s shoulder.
“Poor child!” said Mr. Fairland, wiping her lips and forehead, “she is a dreadful sufferer.”
“Has she been so long?” asked Agnes.
“Ever since her third year,” answered Mr. Fairland, “though, at first, the attacks were comparatively slight; but of late years they have grown more and more severe. Her intellect, as you perhaps have already noticed, is much weakened by them, and her temper, naturally very sweet, is at times almost fiendish. It seems to be her great desire, while suffering so intensely, to injure all within her reach.”
Agnes now understood the reason of the screams of the children, and also of the pinch she had received as Tiney passed her chair. When poor Tiney’s moans had become more faint, Mr. Fairland said:
“Agnes, will you sing? Music seems to soothe her more than anything else, after the extreme suffering is over.”
Agnes sang, with her marvellously sweet voice, a simple air: presently poor Tiney turned her head, and fixed her half-closed eyes on Agnes’ face. Then she said, from time to time, in a dreamy way, “Pretty!—sweet! Sing more;” and then she lay perfectly quiet, and soon fell into a gentle slumber. Often and often, after that, when poor Tiney was seized with these excruciating attacks, as soon as the first intense suffering was over, she would say, “Cousin Agnes, sing!” and, from the time she heard the gentle tones of Agnes’ voice, she would be quiet and gentle as a lamb. The effect could be likened to nothing but the calming of the evil spirit which possessed the monarch of Israel, by the tones of the sweet harp of David.
XIV.
The School in the West Wing.
“Scatter diligently, in susceptible minds,
The germs of the good and beautiful,
They will develop there to trees, bud, bloom,
And bear the golden fruit of paradise.”