ring him ice, ice; and then he clinches his fist and
strikes at the old woman who has approached him to try to calm him, but
she has no power over his ravings, and she perceives that he has a
terrible fever; and then she remembers that he would go supperless to
bed the night before, and that he looked paler and more weary than
usual, and she chides herself for not coming earlier to see if he was
ill. She wishes some body would come; it wouldn't do to leave him alone,
and what can she do by herself? There's a knock at the outer door, she
thinks--no; it is only a stray goat that frequents that quarter of the
city, and has come for her accustomed offering of food. She hasn't any
heart to stop now, and the disappointed animal goes off again to try her
next neighbor. There's no milk-man, nor baker, nor butcher's boy, nor
grocer to come to her, for they do all their own purchasing at the small
shop near, and so the morning wears on, and the lad grows more
delirious, and talks about coffins, and death, and horrible sights, and
just as his grandmother, too frightened to neglect the case longer,
locks the door of his room, and gets her bonnet on to find a doctor, a
lady gives a slight rap and enters the outer door, followed by a young
girl. She hears the delirious tones, and immediately knows that the boy
is ill, and the old woman gladly accepts her kind offer to sit by him
until she returns with the physician, though she says it is too much for
a lady to consent to, and she is fearful the boy will do her some harm
in his raving mood.

"Don't be troubled," said Mrs. Lincoln, "I'm not afraid;" and she turned
the key, and was soon beside the sufferer with her delicate hand upon
his brow, and her tender words soothing his horrors all away. It was
wonderful what a charm there was in the gentle eye that was fixed upon
him, and the soft touch that cooled the burning forehead! Quite an hour
she sat in the same position, breathing out tones that only a mother
ever learns, and the lad lay quiet and calm, looking up into her face
with a pleased and satisfied expression, save when she moved as if to
leave him for a moment, the paroxysm would seize him again. The
physician came, and pronounced the disease brain-fever brought on by
over-fatigue and exertion, and Kittie stood with her pitiful glance
fastened upon him, and she knew then why he was so distressed the day
before when he passed them as they sat in the carriage, and why the
resigna