Mrs. Hamilton did not answer, but covering her face with her hands wept, really wept, thinking for the first time, perhaps, that as she had sowed so was she reaping.  For some time past her health had been failing, and as the summer days grew warmer and more oppressive she felt a degree of lassitude and physical weakness which she had never before experienced; and one day unable longer to sit up, she took her bed, where she lay for many days.

Now that her mother was really sick, Lenora seemed suddenly changed, and with unwearied care watched over her as kindly and faithfully as if no words save those of affection had ever passed between them.  Warmer and more sultry grew the days, and more fiercely raged the fever in Mrs. Hamilton’s veins, until at last the crisis was reached and passed, and she was in a fair way for recovery, when she was attacked by chills, which again reduced her to a state of helplessness.  One day, about this time, a ragged little boy, whose business seemed to be lounging around the hotel, brought to Lenora a soiled and crumpled note, on which was traced with an unsteady hand, “Dear Lenora, I am sick, all alone in the little attic; come to me, quick; come!”

Lenora was in a state of great perplexity.  Her mother, when awake, needed all her care; and as she seldom slept during the day there seemed but little chance of getting away.  The night before, however, she had been unusually restless and wakeful, and about noon she seemed drowsy, and finally fell into a deep sleep.

“Now is my time,” thought Lenora; and calling Hester, she bade her watch by her mother until she returned, saying, “If she wakes tell her I have gone to the village, and will soon be back.”

Hester promised compliance, and was for a time faithful to her trust; but suddenly recollecting something which she wished to tell the girl who lived at the next neighbor’s she stole away, leaving her mistress alone.  For five minutes Mrs. Hamilton slept on, and then with a start awoke from a troubled dream, in which she had seemed dying of thirst, while little Willie, standing by a hogshead of water, refused her a drop.  A part of her dream was true, for she was suffering from the most intolerable thirst, and called loudly for Lenora; but Lenora was not there.  Hester next was called, but she, too, was gone.  Then, seizing the bell which stood upon the table, she rang it with all her force, and still there came no one to her relief.

Again Willie stood by her, offering her a goblet overflowing with water; but when she attempted to take it, Willie changed into Lenora, who laughed mockingly at her distress, telling her there was water in the well and ice on the curbstone.  Once more the phantom faded away, and the old porter was there, wading through a limpid stream and offering her to drink a cup of molten lead.

“Merciful Heaven!” shrieked the sick woman, as she writhed from side to side on her bed, which seemed changed to burning coals; “will no one bring me water, water, water!”