d those rags were to be changed
every two hours. May I do it for you? I can't do it as well as Miss
Schomberg, but I will do my very best not to hurt you."

"I want sleep child," said Miss Webster, "I want _sleep_, leave me
alone."

"You can't sleep in such pain, ma'am," said poor Lucy, quite at her wits
ends.

"Don't you think, I must know that as well as you? There! there's that
rush light gone out, and you never put any water in the tin; a pretty
nurse you make, now I shall have that smell in my nose all night. You
must have set it in a draught. What business has a rush light to go out
in a couple of hours? I wonder."

Lucy put the obnoxious night shade out of the room, and went back to the
bedside. For a long time she was unsuccessful, but at last Miss Webster
consented to have her foot dressed, and even cheered her young nurse by
the acknowledgment that she did it very well, considering; and thus the
night wore away.

Quite early Emilie was at her post, and was grieved to see that Miss
Webster still looked haggard and suffering, and as if she had not slept.
In answer to her inquiries, Lucy said that she had no rest all night.

"Rest! and how can I rest, Miss Schomberg? I can't afford to lose my
lodgers, and lose them I shall."

"Only try and keep quiet," said Emilie, "and I will see that they do not
suffer from want of attendance. _You_ cannot help them, do consent to
leave all thought, all management, to those who can think and manage.
May aunt Agnes come and nurse you, and attend to the housekeeping?"

"Yes," was reluctantly, and not very graciously uttered.

"Well then, Lucy will have time to attend to you. I would gladly nurse
you myself, but you know I may not neglect Miss Parker; now take this
draught, and try and sleep."

"Miss Schomberg," said the poor woman, "you won't lack friends to nurse
you on a sick bed; I have none."

"Miss Webster, if I were to be laid on a sick bed, and were to lose aunt
Agnes, I should be alone in a country that is not my own country,
without money and without friends; but we may both of us have a friend
who sticketh closer than a brother, think of him, ma'am, now, and ask
him to make your bed in your sickness."

She took the feverish hand of the patient as she said this, who,
bursting into a flood of tears, replied, "Ah, Miss Schomberg! I don't
deserve it of you, and that is the truth; but keep my hand, it feels
like a friend's, hold it, will you, and I think I sha