“Yes, I sees, Hasty, but ye mustn’t let it shake your faith a bit, kase de Lord will bring it all right in his time.”

Thus talking, and endeavoring to console her, Sally accompanied Hasty to her now desolate home.  As she entered the room, the low moan of her child fell upon her ear, and awoke her to the necessity of action.  It was well that there existed an immediate call on her, or her heart would have sunk under the heavy burden of sorrow.  She went hastily to the side of the little sufferer, and passing her cold hand over the burning forehead of her child, whispered soothing words of endearment.

“Is father come?” asked Fanny.  “Ise been dreamin’, and I thought for sure he was here.  ’Aint this his night to come home, mother?”

“No, honey, dis is Friday night,” answered Hasty.  “But never mind about father now, but go to sleep, there’s a good girl.”

And sitting down by the side of her child, Hasty, with a mother’s tenderness, soothed her to sleep.  All that long night she sat, but no sleep shed a calm upon her heart; but when morning came exhausted nature could bear up no longer, and she sank into a short but troubled slumber.

    By the sick bed of her child,
      In her cabin lone and drear. 
    Listening to its ravings wild,
      Dropping on it many a tear,
    Sat the mother, broken-hearted;
      Every hope was in its shroud. 
    From her husband she’d been parted,
      And to earth with grief she’s bow’d. 
    Now within her ear is ringing
      Drearily hope’s funeral knell,
    And the night wind wild is singing
      Mournfully, the word farewell.

Day broke, and still mother and child slept on.  Hasty’s over-charged heart and brain were for the first time, for some days, lulled to forgetfulness.  If this relief had not come, without doubt one would have broken, and the other been lost in madness.  Fanny was the first to awake.  The crisis of the disease had passed; the fever no longer scorched her veins, and her mind no longer wandered.  She was, however, as weak as an infant, and as incapable of attending to her wants.  For the first time for many days she felt a desire for food, and raising herself partly up, called to her mother to get her breakfast.

The voice of her child roused Hasty from her dreams of peace, to the dread realities of her bereavement.  For a few moments she could not recall her scattered senses, but soon the remembrance of yesterday crowded upon her mind, and the anguish depicted upon her face showed that they had lost nothing of their intensity during their short oblivion.

“Why Fanny, child, is you awake?  And de fever all gone, too?  How is yer dis mornin’, dear?” asked Hasty.

“O!  I feel a heap better, mother,” answered Fanny; “and I think I will be pretty near well by the time pappy comes to-night.”