"Yis, Becky's come back!" said Grandma, in a tone which seemed to imply, in the very best faith, that during my illness the world had been running on excellently well. "You take some more broth now, teacher, and keep r'al slow-minded and easy, and hev' a good night's rest, and to-morrer I'll tell ye all about it!"
But I persisted; so Grandma continued gently:—
"Wall, it wa'n't much to tell, only the doctor said ye wasn't to be talked to much, nor worked up; but I reckon a little pleasant news ain't a gonter hurt nobody. Ye see, when you was took sick, George Olver, he got a hold of where Becky was; he had a mistrustin' of it, somehow—and he went and told her, and it brought her, hearin' you was dangerous, and she calculated she might be o' use to ye now, for some, they be sich friends!" said Grandma, making this observation with the most guileless enthusiasm. "And Becky, she wa'n't much brought up, and used to be as wild and harum-scarum as any of 'em; but I allus said that there was a good deal to Becky, after all. Wall, George Olver, he recognized where she was and he went down thar' and found her, and they wa'n't anybody ventured to say a word, and what need? for everybody respec's George Olver, knowin' he's uncommon ser'ous and high-minded; and the very same hour they came home, Becky, she come up here, and she turned me right out of the room, as ye might say. 'It's my place, Grandma,' says she, 'and I'm better able than you. I understand. It's my place.' And she wa'n't vary strong, but she wouldn't give up to nobody, and only run home a little while between spells to rest, and watched and tended ye as faithful as though she was keepin' count of every breath; and when the fever turned a Monday night, and you fell off into a kind of a natural sleep, the doctor, he says to her, what it ain't a very common thing for a doctor to say: 'It's you saved her life!' he says. 'She was vary sick.' And he shook his head the way they do. 'You've tended vary faithful,' he says; and Becky, she hardly spoke, but I seen when she looked up that her eyes was a shinin', and that happy look that she's had somehow, sence she came back—I can't tell ye exactly, teacher, but it's most like as ef somebody should have a bad dream, and be wakin' up kinder surprised and thankful—but when the doctor said them words, I'll never forget how her eyes went a shinin', and she says to me, 'I'm goin' home now, and never you tell her, when she wakes up, for she thought it was you watchin' with her all the time, and kep' a callin "Grandma! Grandma!" says she; 'and don't you tell her! don't you; for it would seem as though I was obligin' her, and if she forgives me and is friendly I don't want it to be for that,' And I didn't say as I should or shouldn't tell," said Grandma, smilingly unconscious of the two large tears that were stealing down her cheeks; "but I knowed pretty well what I had on my mind!"
Grandma ceased speaking, and began to busy herself about the room, humming softly her favorite refrain:—
"The Light of the World is Jesus."
I lay very still, thinking—
"Once I was blind but now I can see!"
That low, glad, tremulous murmur brought no peace to my troubled heart.
When Grandma Keeler looked at me again, I fancied she met a helpless, appealing, almost an aggrieved expression in my eyes.
"I want to see her," I said. "I want to see Becky, of course."