"Mayn't I bring you something? do let me."
But Mrs. Rossitur's shake of the head was decisive. Fleda crawled off the bed, feeling as if a month's illness had been making its ravages upon her frame and strength. She stood a moment to collect her thoughts; but alas, thinking was impossible; there was a palsy upon her mind. She went into her own room, and for a minute kneeled down not to form a petition in words she was as much beyond that; it was only the mute attitude of appeal, the pitiful outward token of the mind's bearing, that could not be forborne a silent uttering of the plea she had made her own in happy days. There was something of comfort in the mere feeling of doing it; and there was more in one or two words that even in that blank came to her mind "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him;" and she again recollected that "Providence runneth not upon broken wheels." Nothing could be darker than the prospect before her, and these things did not bring light; but they gave her a sure stay to hold on by and keep her feet a bit of strength to preserve from utterly fainting. Ah! the store-house must be filled, and the mind well familiarized with what is stored in it while yet the days are bright, or it will never be able to find what it wants in the dark.
Fleda first went into the kitchen to tell Barby to fasten the doors, and not sit up.
"I don't believe uncle Rolf will be home to-night; but if he comes, I will let him in."
Barby looked at her with absolutely a face of distress; but not daring to ask, and not knowing how to propose anything, she looked in silence.
"It must be nine o'clock now," Fleda went on.
"And how long be you going to sit up?" said Barby.
"I don't know a while yet."
"You look proper for it!" said Barby, half sorrowfully and half indignantly; "you look as if a straw would knock you down this minute. There's sense into everything. You catch me a- going to bed, and leaving you up! It wont do me no hurt to sit here the hull night; and I'm the only one in the house that's fit for it, with the exception of Philetus, and the little wit he has by day seems to forsake him at night. All the light that ever gets into his head, I believe, comes from the outside; as soon as ever that's gone, he shuts up his shutters. He's been snoozing a'ready now this hour and a half. Go yourself off to bed, Fleda," she added, with a mixture of reproach and kindness, "and leave me alone to take care of myself and the house too."
Fleda did not remonstrate, for Barby was as determined in her way as it was possible for anything to be. She went into the other room without a particle of notion what she should say or do.