Eugenia bent over him in sudden uneasiness.  “Aren’t you well, papa?” she asked.  “Is anything the matter?”

The general laughed and pinched her cheek.

“Never better in my life,” he declared, “but I’ll have to be getting new glasses.  These things aren’t worth a cent.  Find them, Eugie.”

Eugenia picked them up, wiped them on his silk handkerchief, and put them on his nose.

“You’ve slept too long,” she said.  “Come and take a walk in the hall.”

She dragged him from his chair, and he yielded under protest.

“You forget that two hundred pounds can’t skip about like fifty,” he complained.

But he followed her to the long hall, and they paced slowly up and down in the afternoon shadows.  At the end of ten minutes the general declared that he felt so well he would go back to his chair.

“I’ll get the ‘Southern Planter’ and read to you,” said Eugenia.  “Don’t go to sleep.”

She ran lightly upstairs and, coming down in a moment, called him.  He did not answer and she called again.

The sitting-room was in dusk, and, as she entered, the firelight showed the huge body of the general lying upon the hearth rug.  A sound of heavy snoring filled the room.

She flung herself beside him, lifting the great head upon her lap; but before she had cried out Miss Chris was at her elbow.

“Hush, Eugie,” she said quickly, though the girl had not spoken.  “Send Sampson for Dr. Bright, and tell Delphy to bring pillows.  Give him to me.”

Her voice was firm, and there was no tremor in her large, helpful hands.

When Eugenia returned, the general was still lying upon the hearth rug, his head supported by pillows.  Miss Chris had opened one of the western windows, and a cool, damp air filled the room.  The rain had begun again, descending with a soft, purring sound.  Above it she heard the laboured breathing from the hearth rug, and in the firelight she saw the regular inflation of the swollen cheeks.  The distended pupils stared back at her, void of light.

As she stood motionless, her hands clenched before her, she followed the soft, weighty tread of Miss Chris, passing to and fro with improvised applications.  The light fall of the rain irritated her; she longed for the relentless downpour of the night.

At the end of an hour the roll of wheels broke the stillness, and she went out to meet the doctor, passing, with a shiver, the unconscious mass on the floor.

They carried him to his bed in the chamber next the parlour, and through the night and day he lay an inert bulk beneath the bedclothes.  Miss Chris and Eugenia and the servants passed in and out of his room.  One of the dogs came and sat upon the threshold until Eugenia put her arms about his neck and drew him away.  She had not wept; she was white and drawn and silent, as if the shock had dulled her to insensibility.  During the afternoon of the next day she persuaded