s very restless, sometimes out of her head.

After her whim about the door she imagined that a number of men had come
to get her. When Miguel approached the bed, she would say, in terror:--

"See! see that man who has come to take me away!"

"Never mind, _preciosa_; as long as I am here, no one will take you
away!"

Her husband's voice and caresses brought her back to reason as by magic,
and soothed her for a few moments.

The widow insisted on staying to watch that night, for it was two nights
since either Juana or Miguel had gotten any sleep. The latter went and
threw himself down on his bed, charging that if there were the least
change, he should be called.

And in fact the widow woke him up about midnight, saying that Maximina
refused to take her potion and was very restless.

He immediately arose and ran to her room. His wife, after the struggle
that she had undergone with the worthy senora, was in a very agitated
state, her face extremely flushed and her eyes wildly rolling. She did
not know her husband. He, seeing her in that state, lost all his courage
and began to weep. Then Maximina looked straight at him; her eyes soon
lost that terrible look of delirium, and she sat up in bed, and leaning
over toward the young man asked him:--

"Why are you weeping, light of my life? why are you weeping?"

"Because you have refused to take your medicine, and if you don't, you
won't get well."

"I will take it, I will take it; don't cry, for Heaven's sake! Give it
to me!"

And she eagerly drank the spoonful that he put to her lips.

"You will not weep any more, will you?" she asked him, anxiously, and on
hearing him say "no," she kissed his hand again and again.

In the morning the consultation of physicians was held. One at a time
they went in to see the sick woman.

"How tired I am of showing my tongue!" she exclaimed, with a comic
gesture which made him laugh in spite of his tribulations.

The doctors could not come to a definite decision as to the seat of the
fever; they all were inclined, however, to the opinion that it was in
the nervous centre. They were perfectly agreed that at all hazards the
temperature must be in some way reduced. For this they prescribed an
antipyretic remedy.

Miguel himself went in search of it. Its effect was very quick. Within a
few hours after taking it the fever had subsided two degrees; in the
morning the thermometer indicated only thirty-nine and a few decimals;
her res