“Mustn’t touch her,” said Temperance, whose efforts to relieve her were confined to replacing the coverings of the bed, and drawing her nightgown over her bosom, which she often threw off again.  Her breath scarcely stirred her breast.  I thought more than once she did not breathe at all.  Its delicate, virgin beauty touched me with a holy pity.  We sat by her bed in silence a long time, and although it was freezing cold, did not suffer.  Suddenly she turned her head and closed her eyes.  Temperance softly pulled up the clothes over her and whispered:  “It is over for this time; but Lord, how awful it is!  I hoped she was cured of these spells.”

In a few minutes she asked, “What time is it?”

“It must be about eleven,” Temperance replied; but it was nearly four.  She dozed again, but, opening her eyes presently, made a motion toward the window.

“There’s no help for it,” muttered Temperance, “she must go.”

I understood her, and put my arm under Verry’s neck to raise her.  Temperance wrapped the quilt round her, and we carried her to the window.  Temperance pushed open the pane; an icy wind blew against us.

“It is the winter that kills little Verry,” she said, in a childlike voice.  “God’s breath is cold over the world, and my life goes.  But the spring is coming; it will come back.”

I looked at Temperance, whose face was so corrugated with the desire for crying and the effort to keep from it, that for the life of me, I could not help smiling.  As soon as I smiled I laughed, and then Temperance gave way to crying and laughing together.  Veronica stared, and realized the circumstances in a second.  She walked back to the bed, laughing faintly, too.  “Go to bed, do.  You have been here a long time, have you?”

I left Temperance tucking the clothes about her, kissing her, and calling her “deary and her best child.”

I could not go to bed at once, for Fanny was on my hearth before the fire, which she had rekindled, watching the boiling of something.

“She has come to, hasn’t she?” stirring the contents of the kettle.  “I knew it was going to be so with her, she was so mad with me.  She is like the Old Harry before she has a turn, and like an angel after.  I am fond of people who have their ups and downs.  I have seen her so before.  She asked me to keep the doors locked once; they are locked now.  But I couldn’t keep you out.  The doctor said she must have warm drinks as soon as she was better.  This is gruel.”

“If it is done, away with you.  Calamity improves you, don’t it?  You seem in excellent spirits.”

“First-rate; I can be somebody then.”

CHAPTER XXV.