he was tempted to persist; "or if he had caught it,
he would have thrown it off without any harm done. I can bear witness to
his sound constitution to begin with. Everybody knows how disappointment
and mortification lower the system, and he was never over careful of
himself. I cannot quite understand why he took the cool rebuff he
received so much to heart; but he did so, and you see the consequence."

"Spare me! spare me!" cried Dora passionately. "Don't say I have killed
him, or I shall die myself, perhaps it is the best thing I can do."

Before Miss Franklin could do more than stare aghast, with a horrified
inkling of the real facts of the case, and the tremendous mess she had
got into, there was the sound of the soft opening of a door in the near
distance, and a step rapidly approaching.

The two women who had been upbraiding each other were mute in an
instant, first held their breaths, then sprang up and clung to each
other, partners in sorrow, with teeth beginning to chatter, and eyes to
grow large and wild. What had they been doing in the name of a gentle
and manly soul, in the face of the awful news on its way, the majesty of
Death investing the house?

It was only Annie, looking perfectly collected, nay, a trifle elated.
"He is the least shade better--we both think so; and the slightest
improvement means so much at this stage--the right crisis, I believe. He
has been really sleeping. He swallows with less difficulty. He has
roused himself ever so little, but he is fearfully faint and weak. We
cannot get him to take more stimulants than we have been giving him. I
am afraid there is no toilet-vinegar in the house. I came to see if
either of you had a smelling-bottle, which might revive him."

All that Miss Franklin could do was to shake her head. She was so
thankful, yet she felt so guilty, so ashamed of herself.

Dora fumbled nervously in her pocket and gave Annie something, which she
carried off in triumph. Miss Franklin sat down again and cried afresh
between trembling joy and lively vexation. "Oh, won't it be a mercy, for
which we can never praise our Maker too much, if dear Tom gets over his
illness after all?" she managed to say; but she could do no more--even
that lame speech was made awkwardly. To apologize for the heinous
offence she had committed would be a greater enormity than the offence
itself.

But when Miss Franklin had time to think it over afterwards, she was
under the impression that Dor