But August was sick at the castle.  He was very sick.  Every morning Dr. Dibrell, a “calomel-doctor”—­not a steam-doctor—­rode by the house on his way to Andrew’s, and every morning Mrs. Anderson wondered afresh who was sick down that way.  But the doctor staid so long that Mrs. Abigail made up her mind it must be somebody four or five miles away, and so dismissed the matter from her mind.  For August’s return had been kept secret.

But Julia noticed, in her heart of hearts, and with ever-increasing affliction, that the doctor staid longer each day than on the day before, and she thought she noticed also an increasing anxiety on his face as he rode home again.  Her desire to know the real truth, and to see August, to do for him, to give her life for him, were wearing her away.  It is hard to see a friend go from you when you have done everything.  But to have a friend die within your reach, while you are yet unable to help him, is the saddest of all.  All this anxiety Julia suffered without even the blessed privilege of showing it.  The pent-up fire consumed her, and she was at times almost distract.  Every morning she managed to be on the upper porch when the doctor went by, and from the same watch-tower she studied his face when he went back.

Then came a morning when there were two doctors.  A physician from the county-seat village went by, in company with Dr. Dibrell.  So there must be a consultation at the castle.  Julia knew then that the worst had to be looked in the face.  And she longed to get away from under the searching black eyes of her mother and utter the long-pent cry of anguish.  Another day of such unuttered pain would drive her clean mad.

That evening Jonas came over and sought an interview with Cynthy Ann.  He had not been to see her since his unsuccessful courtship.  Julia felt that he was the bearer of a message.  But Mrs. Anderson was in one of her most exacting humors, and it gave her not a little pleasure to keep Cynthy Ann, on one pretext and another, all the evening at her side.  Had Cynthy Ann been less submissive and scrupulous, she might have broken away from this restraint, but in truth she was censuring herself for having any backsliding, rebellious wish to talk with Jonas after she had imagined the idol cast out of her heart entirely.  Her conscience was a tank-master not less grievous than Mrs. Anderson, and, between the two, Jonas had to go away without leaving his message.  And Julia had to keep her breaking heart in suspense a while longer.

Why did she not elope long ago and get rid of her mother?  Because she was Julia, and being Julia, conscientious, true, and filial in spite of her unhappy life, her own character built a wall against such a disobedience.  Nearly all limitations are inside.  You could do almost anything if you could give yourself up to it.  To go in the teeth of one’s family is the one thing that a person of Julia’s character and habits finds next to impossible.  A beneficent