Theodora was sadly frightened, and the groans which she heard did not tend to reassure her. Her aunt must be very ill; perhaps she was even dying.
"Have you sent for the doctor?" she asked.
"There is no one to send," said Miss Dorcas, "for John is in bed with a bad attack of rheumatism; so your aunt Melissa is going with Catherine, the cook. They are getting ready now, but I am afraid it will take them a long time to get to Dr. Morton's house; and it is so very late for women to be out alone—after ten o'clock!"
And then she shut the door again, and her niece was left alone in the hall, with the sound of her aunt Joanna's moans in her ears.
She went to look for her aunt Melissa, and found that she was just rousing Catherine from her first heavy slumber. Though ten o'clock was not late in the eyes of the world, the Middleton household had been in bed for an hour, and to them it seemed like the middle of the night.
It would take Catherine a long time to get awake, to say nothing of dressing. Miss Melissa herself was in her wrapper, and Theodora supposed that she would not go forth even upon an errand of life and death without arraying herself as if for a round of calls, down to the very last pin in the shoulder of her camel's-hair shawl—and in the mean time Aunt Joanna might die!
How dreadful it was! Teddy wished that she could do something. She did not love Aunt Joanna as she did either of her other aunts, but she would do anything to save her life. She could run to Dr. Morton's in half the time that it would take Aunt Melissa and old Catherine to get there.
Suddenly she bethought herself of Arthur's wheel down in the back entry. She would go on that!
ANOTHER MOMENT SHE MOUNTED AND WAS OFF.