this way and that,
and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering--

'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a
devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud--my darling Maud.'

'You must, Milly--Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, indeed, I
wonder how we kept our feet.

So Milly and I were better friends than ever.

Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long nights,
and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I was frightened at the
frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was subject. I
did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly's way of
talking about them.

But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called for me, and I
saw him, and was unspeakably scared.

In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have
thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L'Amour, who knew every
gradation and symptom of these strange affections.

She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and whispered--

'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for a bit, anon.'

Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like that
of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.

There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip of white
eyeball was also disclosed.

Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and
screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised
uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.

'Ah! the girl--Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able--I'll speak
to-morrow--next day--it is tic--neuralgia, or something--_torture_--tell
her.'

So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the
same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face
resumed its dreadful cast.

'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to talk to you
noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again in a whisper.

So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he looked
as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who,
forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out
derisively,

'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul--he's bin a-dying daily this
many a day.'

I looked at her with a chill o