“Am I very sick, and can’t I go on?” asked the young lady, attempting to rise, but sinking back from extreme weakness.

“Considerable sick, I guess,” answered the landlady, taking from a side cupboard an immense decanter of camphor, and passing it toward the stranger.  “Considerable sick, and I wouldn’t wonder if you had to lay by a day or so.  Will they be consarned about you to home, ’cause if they be, my old man’ll write.”

“I have no home,” was the sad answer, to which Aunt Betsey responded in astonishment, “Hain’t no home!  Where does your marm live?”

“Mother is dead,” said the girl, her tears dropping fast upon the pillow.

Instinctively the landlady drew nearer to her, as she asked, “And your pa—­where is he?”

“I never saw him,” said the girl, while her interrogator continued:  “Never saw your pa, and your marm is dead—­poor child, what is your name, and where did you come from?”

For a moment the stranger hesitated, and then thinking it better to tell the truth at once, she replied, “My name is ’Lena.  I lived with my uncle a great many miles from here, but I wasn’t happy.  They did not want me there, and I ran away.  I am going to my cousin, but I’d rather not tell where, so you will please not ask me.”

There was something in her manner which silenced Aunt Betsey, who, erelong, proposed that she should go upstairs and lie down on a nice little bed, where she would be more quiet.  But ’Lena refused, saying she should feel better soon.

“Mebby, then, you’d eat a mouffle or two.  We’ve got some roasted pork, and Hetty’ll warm over the gravy;” but ’Lena’s stomach rebelled at the very thought, seeing which, the landlady went back to the kitchen, where she soon prepared a bowl of gruel, in spite of the discouraging remarks of her husband, who, being a little after the Old Hunks order, cautioned her “not to fuss too much, as gals that run away warn’t apt to be plagued with money”

Fortunately, Aunt Betsey’s heart covered a broader sphere, and the moment the stage was gone she closed the door to shut out the dust, dropped the green curtains, and drawing from the spare-room a large, stuffed chair, bade ’Lena “see if she couldn’t set up a minit.”  But this was impossible, and all that long, sultry afternoon she lay upon the lounge, holding her aching head, which seemed well-nigh bursting with its weight of pain and thought.  “Was it right for her to run away?  Ought she not to have stayed and bravely met the worst?  Suppose she were to die there alone, among strangers and without money, for her scanty purse was well-nigh drained.”  These and similar reflections crowded upon her, until her brain grew wild and dizzy, and when at sunset the physician came again he was surprised to find how much her fever had increased.

“She ought not to lie here,” said he, as he saw how the loud shouts of the school-boys made her shudder.  “Isn’t there some place where she can be more quiet?”