able to keep out of her
own mind. It was the plunge into the Black Pool and the going about
afterward in his wet clothes that had brought on this illness, and that
it should be God's will that David Fleming's grandson, his hope and
stay, should lose his health, perhaps his life, in saving the son of
Jacob Holt, looked to Miss Betsey a terrible mystery. She did not say
that God was hard on him, as poor Katie was afraid of doing; but when,
now and then, there came a half hour when it seemed doubtful whether
Davie would get through, the thought that God would not afflict His
servant to the uttermost helped her to still hope for the lad. As far
as words and deeds went, she showed herself always hopeful for him, and
did more than even the doctor himself in helping him to pull through.

In country places like Gershom, where professional nurses were not often
to be found, when severe sickness comes into a family necessitating
constant attention by night as well as by day, the neighbours, far and
near, might be relied upon for help, as far as it could be given by
persons coming and going for a night or a day. The Flemings had had
severe sickness among them more than once, but they had never called on
their neighbours for help, and they could not bring themselves to do so
now, even for night-watching. That she should trust Davie to any of the
kind young fellows who night after night offered, their services, was to
grannie impossible. She did not doubt their good-will, but she doubted
their wisdom and their power to keep awake after their long day's work.
"And it is no' our way," said Mrs Fleming, and that ended the
discussions, as it had ended them on former occasions.

"But they never can get through it alone this time," said Miss Betsey,
"and I don't know but it is my duty to see about it, as much as
anybody."

It was just in the hot days in the beginning of August when Betsey was
wont to give up butter-making and set to the making of cheese, the very
worst time of the year for her to get away from home. But she saw no
help for it.

"You must do the best you can, mother, you and Cynthy, and Ben will give
what help you need with the lifting. If I should never make another
cheese as long as I live, I can't let Mrs Fleming wear herself out, and
maybe lose her boy after all."

So Miss Betsey went over one morning "to inquire," she said, and some
trifling help being needed for a minute, she took off her bonnet, and
"