I gazed at it curiously for a while and
stirred it slightly to make sure,--what a mighty effort that little
motion cost me!--and then I became aware that a breeze was passing across
my face, and a peculiar thing about it was that it came and went
regularly like the swinging of a pendulum. And when I raised my eyes to
see what this might mean, I found myself looking straight into the
astonished face of Sam, my boy.

He stared at me for a moment, his eyes starting from his head, and then
with a loud cry he dropped the fan he had been wielding and ran from the
room, clapping his hands together as he went, as I had heard negroes do
under stress of great excitement. What could it mean? Again my eyes fell
upon the queer, bandaged thing which must be my hand. Had there been an
accident? I could not remember, and while my mind was still wrestling
with the question in a helpless, flabby way, I heard the swish of skirts
at the door, and there entered who but Dorothy!

"Why, Dorothy!" I cried, and then stopped, astonished at the sound of my
own voice. It was not my voice at all,--I had never heard it before,--and
it seemed to come from a great way off. And what astonished me more than
anything else was that Dorothy did not seem in the least surprised by it.

"Yes, Tom," she said, and she came to the bedside and laid her hand upon
my head. Such a cool, soft little hand it was. "Why, the fever is quite
gone! You will soon be well again."

I tried to raise my hand to take hers, but it lay there like a great
dead weight, and I could scarcely move it. I know not what it was, but
at the sight of her standing there so strong and brave and sweet, and
the thought of myself so weak and helpless, the tears started from my
eyes and rolled down my cheeks in two tiny rivulets. She seemed to
understand my thought, for she placed one of her hands in mine, and with
the other wiped my tears away. I love to think of her always as I saw
her then, bending over me with infinite pity in her face and wiping my
tears away. The moment of weakness passed, and my brain seemed clearer
than it had been.

"Have I been ill?" I asked.

"Very ill, Tom," she said. "But now you will get well very quickly."

"What was the matter with me, Dorothy?"

She looked at me a moment and seemed hesitating for an answer.

"I think you would better go to sleep now, Tom," she said at last, "and
when you wake again, I will tell you all about it."

"Very well," I answere