And with motherly insistance she brought me a steaming bowl of beef-tea, while I still lay, holding Bessie's hand, with a feeble dawning that the vision was real.
"No," she said as Bessie put out her arm for the bowl, "you prop up his head. I've got a steddyer hand: you'd just spill it all over his go to-meetin' suit."
I looked down at myself. I was still dressed in the clothes that I had worn—when was it? last week?—when I had started for the Shaker meeting.
"How long?" I said feebly.
"Only this morning, you darling boy, it all happened; and here we are, snug at Mrs. Splinter's, and Mary Jane is getting the cottage ready for us as fast as ever she can."
How good that beef-tea was! Bessie knew well what would give it the sauce piquante. "Ready for us!"
"Here's the doctor at last," said Hiram, putting his head in at the door. "Why, hillo! are we awake?"
"The doctor! Dr. Wilder?" I said beamingly. How good of Bessie! how thoughtful!
"Not Dr. Wilder, you dear old boy!" said Bessie, laughing and blushing, "though I sha'n't scold you, Charlie, for that!" in a whisper in my ear. "It's Dr. Bolster of Lee. Hiram has been riding all over the country for him this afternoon."
"I'll go down to him," I said, preparing to rise.