At first, Mrs. Parlin wondered how it would be possible to keep such a restless child quiet; but she found, as time passed, and the disease made progress, that poor little Prudy was only too glad to lie still.  Every motion seemed to hurt her, and sometimes she cried if any one even jarred the sofa suddenly.

These were dark days for everybody in the house.  Susy, who was thoughtful beyond her years, suffered terribly from anxiety about her little sister.  More than that, she suffered from remorse.

“O, grandma Read,” said she one evening, as she sat looking up at the solemn, shining stars, with overflowing eyes—­“O, grandma!” The words came from the depths of a troubled heart.  “I may live to be real old; but I never shall be happy again!  I can’t, for, if it hadn’t been for me?  Prudy would be running round the house as well as ever!”

Mrs. Read had a gentle, soothing voice.  She could comfort Susy when anybody could.  Now she tried to set her heart at rest by saying that the doctor gave a great deal of hope.  He could not promise a certain cure, but he felt great faith in a new kind of splint which he was using for Prudy’s hip.

“O, grandma, it may be, and then, again, it may not be,” sobbed poor Susy; “we can’t tell what God will think best; but anyhow, it was I that did it.”

“But, Susan, thee must think how innocent thee was of any wrong motive.  Thee did not get angry, and push thy little sister, thee knows thee didn’t, Susan!  Thee was only in a hurry, and rather thoughtless.  The best of us often do very foolish things, and cause much mischief; but thee’ll find it isn’t best to grieve over these mistakes.  Why, my dear little Susan, I have lived eight years to thy one, and if I should sit down now and drop a tear for every blunder I have made, I don’t know but I could almost make a fountain of myself, like that woman thee tells about in the fairy story.”

“The fountain of Pirene that Pegasus loved,” said Susy; “that was the name of it.  Why, grandma, I never should have thought of your saying such a queer thing as that!  Why, it seems as if you always did just right, and thought it all over before you did it.  Do you ever do wrong?  How funny!”

Mrs. Read smiled sadly.  She was not an angel yet; so I suppose she did wrong once in a while.

“Now, grandma, I want to ask you one question, real sober and honest.  You know it was so dark that morning in the middle of the night, when we were going down the back stairs?  Now, if I’d made a great deal worse mistake than calling Prudy a snail,—­if I’d pushed her real hard, and she had fallen faster,—­O, I can’t bear to think!  I mean, if the chair-prongs had hit her head, grandma—­and—­killed her!  What would they have done to me?  I thought about it last night, so I couldn’t go to sleep for the longest while!  I heard the clock strike once while I was awake there in bed!  Would they have put me in the lock-up, grandma, and then hung me for murder?”