on a sittin' watchin' her."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Panney; "he never told you that."

"That's the pint of what I got out of him, and you know, Miss Panney,
that that garret's hanted."

Miss Panney wasted no words in attempting to disprove this assertion.

"He found her asleep on the floor?" said she.

"Yes, Miss Panney," answered Phoebe, "dead asleep, or more likely, to my
mind, in a dead faint, among all the drafts and chills of that garret,
and in her stockin' feet. She had tuk up a candle with her, but I'spect
the skeleton blowed it out. And now she's got an awful cold, so she can
scarcely breathe, and a fever hot enough to roast an egg."

At this moment Ralph appeared in the hall. The visitor immediately went
up to him.

"Mr. Haverley, I suppose. I am Miss Panney. I am a neighbor, and I came
to see if I could do anything for your sister before the doctor arrives.
I am a good nurse, and know all about sicknesses;" and she explained why
she had come and the doctor had not.

When Miriam turned her head and saw the black eyes of Miss Panney gazing
down upon her, she pushed herself back in the bed, and exclaimed,--

"Are you his wife?"

"No, indeed," said Miss Panney, "I wouldn't marry him for a thousand
pounds. I am your nurse. I am going to give you something nice to make
you feel better. Put your hand in mine. There, that will do. Keep
yourself covered up, even if you are a little warm, and I will come back
presently with the nicest kind of a cup of tea."

"It's a cold and a fever," she said to Ralph, outside the chamber door.
"The commonest thing in the world. But I'll make her a hot drink that
will do her more good than anything else that could be given her, and
when the doctor comes, he'll tell you so. He knows me, and what I can do
for sick people. I brought everything that's needed in my bag, and I am
going down to the kitchen myself. But how in the world did she come to
stay on the garret floor all night? She couldn't have been in a swoon all
that time."

"No," answered Ralph; "she told me she came to her senses, she didn't
know when, but that everything was pitch dark about her, and feeling
dreadfully tired and weak, she put her head down on her arm, and tried
to think why she was lying on such a hard floor, and then she must
have dropped into the heavy sleep in which I found her. She was tired
out with her journey and the excitement. Do you think she is in danger,
Miss Panney?"

"Don't bel