But by and by his hands shall be white like Tom’s, though not so soft.  I hate a hand which feels like a fluff of cotton.  He shall not live here, for Harold could never get along with mother and Tom; but we will build a house together, Hally and I, with Jerrie to help and plan—­build one where the cottage stands, or near it, so Jerrie can still see the old Tramp House she is so fond of.  Not a house like this, with such big rooms, but a pretty, modern Queen Ann house, with every room a corner room, and a bay-window in it.  And Harold will have an office in town, and I shall drive down for him every afternoon and take him home to dinner and to Jerrie.’

Such was the nature of Maude’s thoughts, as she lay day after day upon the couch, too weak to do more thin lift her hands or rise her head when the dreadful paroxysms of coughing seized her and racked her fragile frame.  Still she was very happy, and the happiness showed itself upon her, where there rested a look of perfect content and peace, which her father and mother had noticed and commented upon, and which Jerrie saw the moment she entered the room and stood by Maude’s side.

‘Dear Maude,’ she said, as she took the hot hands in hers and kissed them tenderly.

Then she sat down beside her, and smoothed her hair, and told her how lovely she looked in her pretty rose-colored wrapper, and how sorry every one was for her, and that both she and Nina would have been there every day, only they knew they could not see her.  Then, as the great black eyes fixed themselves steadily upon her, with a look of enquiry in them, she set her teeth hard, and began: 

’I don’t think anyone has been more sorry than Harold.  Why, for the first few days after you were taken so ill he just walked the floor all the time he was in the house, and when grandma asked what ailed him, he said, “I am thinking of Maude, and am afraid my call upon her was the cause of the attack."’

‘N—­n—­,’ Maude began, but checked herself in time, and taking up her slate, wrote, ‘Tell him it was not his call.  I am glad he came.’

‘Yes I will,’ Jerrie replied, scarcely able to keep back her tears, when she saw how cramped and irregular the handwriting was, so unlike Maude’s, and realized more and more how weak and sick was the little girl whose eyes followed her everywhere and always grew brighter and softer when she was talking to her of Harold.

All day and all night Jerrie sat by her, sometimes talking to her and answering the questions she wrote upon the slate, but oftener in perfect silence, when Maude seemed to be asleep.  Then Jerrie’s tears fell like rain, the face upon the pillow looked so much like death, and she kept repeating to herself the lines: 

  ’We thought her dying when she slept. 
  And sleeping when she died.’

When the warm July morning looked in at the windows of the sick-room, bringing with it the perfume of hundreds of flowers blooming on the lawn, and the scent of the hay cut the previous day, it found Jerrie still watching by Maude, her own face tired and pale, with dark rings about her eyes, which were heavy with tears and wakefulness.  She had not slept at all, and her head was beginning to ache frightfully when the nurse came in and relieved her, telling her breakfast was ready.  Maude was awake, and wrote eagerly upon the slate: