A deeper shade of trouble than that which already rested on the mother's face glanced over it.
"Ella! Ella!" Mrs. Wilkinson slightly shook the child.
The only response was the muttering of some incoherent words, and a continued moaning as if pain were disturbing her sleep.
The mother now bent low over her child, and eagerly marked the expression of her face and the character of her breathing. Then she laid a hand upon her cheek. Instantly it was withdrawn with a quick start, but as quickly replaced again.
"What a burning fever!" she murmured. Then she added, in a tone of anxiety,
"How strangely she works her mouth! I don't like this constant rolling of her head. What can it mean? Ella! Ella!"
And she shook the child again.
"Want some water, love?"
The mother's voice did not appear to reach the locked sense of hearing.
Mrs. Wilkinson now lifted a glass of water from the bureau near by, and raising the head of Ella with one hand, applied, with the other, the water to her lips. About a table-spoonful was poured into her mouth. It was not swallowed, but ran out upon the pillow.