Prudy's mother came in the cars that night, looking pale and troubled. Prudy did not know her.
"Why don't you bring my own mamma?" said she.
"Look at me, darling," said her mother, "here I am, right here. Mother won't leave her little Prudy again."
"I ain't Prudy!" screamed the child; "Prudy's gone to heaven. God came and helped her up the steps."
One of the first things Mrs. Parlin did was to cut off her little daughter's beautiful curls, and lay them tenderly away in a drawer.
"Ah, sister Madge," said she, "you can't guess how it makes my heart ache to have my child take me for a stranger."
"Perhaps she may know you to-morrow," said aunt Madge; though in her heart she had very little hope of the child.
But Prudy did not know any body "to-morrow," nor the next day, nor the next. O, the long, weary time that they watched by her bed! The terrible disease seemed to be drinking up her life. Her cheeks looked as if fierce fires were hidden in them, and when she raved so wildly her eyes shone like flames.
A deep hush had fallen on the house. Grace and Susy would go and sit by the hour in their seat in the trees, and talk about dear little Prudy. Horace had the heartache, too, and asked every day,—
"Do you think she's going to die?"