"
"Only try and keep quiet," said Emilie, "and I will see that they do not
suffer from want of attendance. _You_ cannot help them, do consent to
leave all thought, all management, to those who can think and manage.
May aunt Agnes come and nurse you, and attend to the housekeeping?"
"Yes," was reluctantly, and not very graciously uttered.
"Well then, Lucy will have time to attend to you. I would gladly nurse
you myself, but you know I may not neglect Miss Parker; now take this
draught, and try and sleep."
"Miss Schomberg," said the poor woman, "you won't lack friends to nurse
you on a sick bed; I have none."
"Miss Webster, if I were to be laid on a sick bed, and were to lose aunt
Agnes, I should be alone in a country that is not my own country,
without money and without friends; but we may both of us have a friend
who sticketh closer than a brother, think of him, ma'am, now, and ask
him to make your bed in your sickness."
She took the feverish hand of the patient as she said this, who,
bursting into a flood of tears, replied, "Ah, Miss Schomberg! I don't
deserve it of you, and that is the truth; but keep my hand, it feels
like a friend's, hold it, will you, and I think I shall sleep a little
while;" and Emilie stood and held her hand, stood till she was faint and
weary, and then withdrawing it as gently as ever mother unloosed an
infant's hold, she withdrew, shaded the light from the sleeper's eyes,
and stole out of the room, leaving the sufferer at ease, and in one of
those heavy sleeps which exhaustion and illness often produce.
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