the fever ran, and
so wild and restless the patient grew. The friends were all there
now--James, and John, and Andy, and Aunt Barbara, with Mrs. Markham,
senior, who, at first, felt a little worried, lest her son should be
eaten out of house and home, especially as Melinda manifested no
disposition to stint the table of any of their accustomed luxuries. As
housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson was a little inclined at first to stand in awe
of the governor's mother, and so offered no remonstrance when the tea
grounds from supper were carefully saved to be boiled up for breakfast,
as both Melinda and Aunt Barbara preferred tea to coffee, but when it
came to a mackerel and a half for seven people, and four of them men,
Mrs. Dobson demurred, and Melinda's opinion in requisition, the result
was that three fishes, instead of one and a half smoked upon the
breakfast table next morning, together with toast and mutton-chops.
After that Mrs. Markham gave up the contest with a groan, saying, "they
might go to destruction their own way, for all of her."

Where Ethelyn was concerned, however, she showed no stint. Nothing was
too good for her, no expense too great, and next to Richard and Andy,
she seemed more anxious, more interested than anyone for the sick girl
who lay so insensible of all that was passing around her, save at brief
intervals when she seemed for an instant to realize where she was, for
her eyes would flash about the room with a frightened, startled look,
and then seek Richard's face with a wistful, pleading expression, as if
asking not to cast her off, not to send her back into the dreary world
where she had wandered so long alone. The sight of so many seemed to
worry her, for she often talked of the crowd at the Clifton depot,
saying they took her breath away; and once, drawing Andy's face down to
her, she whispered to him, "Send them back to the Cure, all but his
royal highness"--pointing to Richard--"and Anna, the prophetess, she
can stay."

This was Aunt Barbara, to whom Ethelyn clung as a child to its mother,
missing her the moment she left the room, and growing quiet as soon as
she returned. It was the same with Richard. She seemed to know when he
quitted her side, and her eyes watched the door eagerly till he came
back to her again. At the doctor's suggestion, all were at last banished
from the sick-room except Aunt Barbara, and Richard, and Nick Bottom, as
she persisted in calling poor Andy, who was terribly perplexed