With these she returned home, renewed her fire, and, after preparing the bones and vegetables she had procured, put them into an iron pot with some water, and hung this upon the crane.  She then sat down again to her work.

At twelve o’clock Henry came in from school, and brought up an armful of wood, and some water, and then, by direction of his mother, saw that the fire was kept burning briskly.  At one, Mrs. Gaston laid by her work again, and set the table for dinner.  Henry went for a loaf of bread while she was doing this, and upon his return found all ready.  The meal, palatable to all, was a well-made soup; the mother and her two children ate of it with keen appetites.  When it was over, Henry went away again to school and Mrs. Gaston, after administering to Ella another dose of medicine, sat down once more to her work.  One sleeve remained to be sewed in, when the garment would only require to have the collar put on, and be pressed off.  This occupied her until late in the afternoon.

“Thirty cents for all that!” she sighed to herself, as she laid the finished garment upon the bed.  “Too bad!  Too bad!  How can a widow and three children subsist on twenty cents a day?”

A deep moan from Ella caused her to look at her child more intently than she had done for half an hour.  She was alarmed to find that her face had become like scarlet, and was considerably swollen.  On speaking to her, she seemed quite stupid, and answered incoherently, frequently putting her hand to her throat, as if in pain there.  This confirmed the mother’s worst fears for her child, especially as she was in a raging fever.  Soon after, Henry came in from school, and she dispatched him for Doctor R—­, who returned with the boy.  He seemed uneasy at the manner in which the symptoms were developing themselves.  A long and silent examination ended in his asking for a basin.  He bled her freely, as there appeared to be much visceral congestion, and an active inflammation of the tonsils, larynx, and air passages, with a most violent fever.  After this she lay very still, and seemed much relieved.  But, half an hour after the doctor had left, the fever rallied again, with burning intensity.  Her face swelled rapidly, and the soreness of her throat increased.  About nine o’clock the doctor came in again, and upon examining the child’s throat, found it black and deeply ulcerated.

“What do you think of her, doctor?” asked the poor mother, eagerly.

“I think her very ill, madam—­and, I regret to say, dangerously so.”

“Is it scarlet fever, doctor?”

“It is, madam.  A very bad case of it.  But do not give way to feelings of despondency.  I have seen worse cases recover.”

More active medicines than any that had yet been administered were given by the doctor, who again retired, with but little hope of seeing his patient alive in the morning.