When she was alone the stern nature broke down, and Aunt Clarissa approached the bedside. She knelt down and hid her face in her hands.
"I am punished for my stubborn pride," she said. Then in prayer she poured forth all the contrition of her heart.
Sleep is a curious phenomenon in many ways. Things that might be expected to awaken seem to coincide with our dreaming thoughts and pass us by, while soft noises or an unexpected presence awakens us as if a cold hand had been laid upon the forehead.
Grace had not been awakened by the trampling of the many feet or the commotion caused by carrying George up the stairway. She had dreamed that a body of troops had taken possession of the house, and that she was endeavoring to hide, for a voice had seemed to say, "The British are here!"
Afterwards the dream had changed, as all dreams do, and she was again a little girl playing on the bank of the brook with her two beloved brothers—one now lying ill in the big room down the hall, and the other, for aught she knew, far away in the distant city of London—for William's letter to Aunt Clarissa announcing his arrival in America had not reached Stanham Mills.
As Grace dreamed once more of the old days, she had awakened. The moon had come out again, and was about to sink behind the range of western hills, but the cold light flooded the room.
All at once Grace started and sat up. Yes! There was no doubt about it. There were footsteps going down the hall. She stole to the door and opened it cautiously, her heart beating fast.
She was not mistaken, for there was the figure of her brother George, dressed exactly as when he had arrived on horseback, stepping carefully down the broad staircase.
The girl hastened back into the room, and slipping her little white feet into a pair of soft slippers, she threw a heavy cloak about her, and picked up the candle that was burning brightly behind its paper shade.
When she reached the hallway below she started. There was her brother endeavoring with his left hand to open the heavy front door. "George!" she called, "Is it you?"