“Lie against the cushions, please,” commanded the doctor quietly. “Now I’m going to be here and watch every symptom. You won’t have to keep anything on your mind,—and your aunt may rally, remember, perhaps even return to consciousness again. Just put the responsibility entirely on Mrs. Smith and me, and try to rest as much as you can.”
There was no resisting this; he should not see, however, that my eyes grew moist under the unwonted sensation of being looked out for. I turned my head away to pull my forces together, but he had gone back to Aunt Abby’s bedside. When he came out, in about five minutes, he told me that all was going well, and then sitting down began to speak of everyday matters. Before very long a better footing was established between us than ever before, and for a couple of hours we talked, only interrupted by visits to the sick-room. I forgot my secret smart at having been ridiculed, in hearing Morris Richmond tell delightful bits of his own experiences and life interest. Not being enough of a woman of the world to resist the delicate flattery which such a recital implies, I didn’t suspect him either of adroitness enough to use his autobiography for that purpose. But about twelve o’clock he looked at his watch, then at me, and frowned.
“You’re horribly tired,” he said, “and I’ve no business to keep you up when it isn’t necessary. Please go upstairs to bed, and sleep till four o’clock. I shall be here till then, and there will be absolutely nothing for you to do. If your aunt is improving, you needn’t be called till seven, for you can take Mrs. Smith’s place to-morrow, and Mrs. Benjamin will come over to help you if you need her.”
Evidently he himself was tired of talking so long. I didn’t give him credit for any especially disinterested motives in sending me off, but went with some resentment, since he so plainly wished me to go. I didn’t sleep, however. The mirror on the wall of the barren guest room moved from some hidden draught or jar, the old willow whipped its twigs against the window panes, and I lay watching them with a strange tumult in my heart, a whirlwind of whys and conjectures, a creeping nervousness as to the outcome of the next few hours, a lonely dread of the after months when Aunt Abby should be gone and my home life changed,—and yet, through it all, an odd new satisfaction which I tried to push away, and a tendency to go over word for word the talk of that evening and the looks on Morris Richmond’s face. There was a faint dawn in the room before I knew it, and then it occurred to me that the doctor ought to have a little breakfast after his long vigil. The servants were asleep, but the kitchen fire had been left “in,” and I knew where everything was kept. I freshened myself up and stole down the back stairs to cook coffee and eggs and hot toast. In the midst of it the door opened behind me, and I started guiltily.
“What are you doing now?” he demanded.
“How did you know?” I faltered.
“The smell of that coffee going all through the house is enough to wake anybody. So this is the way you obey orders! Miss West is better, and I am just going. You might perfectly well have slept on.”
“But I couldn’t,” I insisted, “and you will stay and drink the coffee now that I have cooked it.”
He consented if I would have some too, and we ate our impromptu meal in the dark dining-room, warming up over it and chatting most familiarly. It was growing light when the doctor took his hat in the hall.
“Thank you for being so good to me,” he said. “I appreciate it. Now please don’t overdo. I sha’n’t be in again probably until noon, unless you send for me;”—and he opened the door, where we both stood looking out. We were just opposite his house. The storm was abating, but the havoc it had made was visible everywhere. A big elm had been uprooted on the common, and lay prone, with hundreds of scattered twigs about it. And the doctor’s front yard? Alas! Mrs. Benjamin’s old buttonwood tree, which had been dying all summer, was crashed over, burying in its prostrate branches the crane, the andirons, the gay beds and all. Nature itself had swept away the last barriers now, I reflected triumphantly, to what might be a good satisfactory friendship. Better days were coming. But—