“Hush, hush,” said that surprised spectator. “Bless your poor soul, don’t take on. If you can’t do it to-day, you’ll do it to-morrow; though I don’t know, no more than Adam, what she’s got to do, Miss Pamela, as is so pressing. Don’t take on. Keep still, and you’ll be better to-morrow. Don’t go and take no liberties with yourself. You ain’t fit to stand, much less to do any thing. Bless you, you’ll be as lively as lively to-morrow, if you lie still and take a drop of beef-tea now and again, and don’t take on.” “Yes, I’ll do it to-morrow. It’ll do to-morrow; a day don’t signify,” said Mrs. Preston; and she recovered herself, and was very quiet, while Pamela took her place by the bedside. Either she was going to be ill, perhaps to die, or something had happened to change her very nature, and turn the current of her life into another channel. Which of these things it was, was beyond the discrimination of the poor girl who watched by her bedside. CHAPTER XXXI. SUSPICION. Neither the next day, however, nor the next again, was Mrs. Preston able to move. The doctor had to be brought at last, and he enjoined perfect quiet and freedom from care. If she had any thing on her mind, it was to be exorcised and put away, he ordered, speaking to Mrs. Swayne and Pamela, who had not a notion what she had on her mind. As for the patient, she made her effort to rise every morning, and failed, and turned upon her watchers such looks of despair as bewildered them. Every morning Jack Brownlow would come to ask for her, which was the only moment of the day in which Pamela found a little comfort; but her mother found it out instinctively, and grew so restless, and moaned so pitifully when her child left her, that even that sorrowful pleasure had to be given up. The young people did not know what to think. They persuaded themselves sometimes that it was only the effect of illness, and that a fancy so sudden and unexplainable would, when she was better, vanish as unreasonably as it came; but then, what was it she had to do? When she had lain for several days in this state of feebleness, always making vain efforts after strength, another change came over Mrs. Preston. The wild look went out of her eyes. One morning she called Pamela to her with more than her usual energy. “I am going to be very quiet and still for a week,” she said; “if I am not better then, I will tell you what you must do, Pamela. You must send for the rector and for Nancy Christian from old Mrs. Fennell’s in Masterton. This is Tuesday, and it is the 30th; and I will try for a week. If I am not better next Tuesday, you must send for the rector. Promise me to do exactly what I say.” “Yes, mamma,” said Pamela; “but oh! what for?--if you would only tell me what it is for! You never kept any thing secret from me.”