To Ethelyn Andy was tender as a mother, when at last they
let him see her, and his lips left marks upon her forehead and cheek.
She was perfectly conscious now, and when told they had sent for
Richard, manifested a good deal of interest, and asked when he would
probably be there. They were expecting him every train; but ere he came
the fever, which seemed for a time to have abated, returned with double
force and Ethelyn knew nothing of the kisses Richard pressed upon her
lips, or the tears Aunt Barbara shed over her poor darling.
There were anxious hearts and troubled faces in the farmhouse that day,
for Death was brooding there again, and they who watched his shadow
darkening around them spoke only in whispers, as they obeyed the
physician's orders. When Richard first came in Mrs. Markham wound her
arm around his neck, and said, "I am so sorry for you, my poor boy,"
while the three sons, one after another, had grasped their brother's
hand in token of sympathy, and that was all that had passed between them
of greeting. For the rest of the day, Richard had sat constantly by
Ethelyn, watching the changes of her face, and listening to her as she
raved in snatches, now of himself, and the time he saved her from the
maddened cow, and now of Frank and the huckleberries, which she said
were ripening on the Chicopee hills.
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