Peggy had forbidden the servants to wait up for her. She wishes now that she had not. It is very eerie here alone in the little dark house, whose darkness seems all the blacker for the faint, unsure glimmer of coming day that here and there patches the night's garment; alone with her half-swooning sister. Thank God! there is a lamp still burning in the sitting-hall, though the fire is out, and the air strikes cold. She staggers with her burden to the settle, and laying her gently down upon it, snatches up a flat candlestick, and lighting it at the lamp, hastens away upstairs to the closet where she keeps her drugs for the poor, medicine for the dogs, and her small stock of cordials; and taking thence a flask of brandy, hurries back with it, and pours some down Prue's throat. It is not an easy task to get it down through the girl's set and chattering teeth; but at length she succeeds, and is presently rewarded by seeing signs of returning animation in the poor body, whose feet and hands she is chafing with such a tender vigour. 'I am cold,' says Prue, shivering; 'so cold! May not I go to bed?' 'Do you think that you can walk?' asks Peggy anxiously; 'or shall I carry you?' 'Walk!' repeats the other, with a little dreary smile. 'Why not? There is nothing the matter with me.' She rises to her feet as she speaks, but totters so pitiably that Peggy again comes to her rescue. 'Of course you can walk,' she says soothingly; 'but I think we are both rather tired: had not we better help each other upstairs?' And so, with her strong and tender arm flung about her poor Prue's fragile, shivering figure, they slowly climb together--oh, so slowly!--the stairs, down which Prue had leaped with such gaiety eight hours ago. In the bedroom, which they at last reach, the fire is happily still alight, and only needs a few fresh coals to blaze up cheerfully. But since Prue still shivers, long shudders of cold running down her limbs and convulsing her frame, Peggy wheels an arm-chair close to the fire, and wrapping a warm dressing-gown about her sister, holds her cold feet to the flame, rubbing them between both her hands. For some time Prue's only answer to these attentions is a low moan which, after awhile, shapes itself into articulate words: 'To bed! Let me go to bed!' And so Peggy, unlacing with a sick heart the poor crumpled gown that had been put on in such pride and freshness over-night, carries its drooping wearer to her bed, and laying her down most gently in it, covers her with the warm bed-clothes, tucking them in, and bidding God bless her, as she has done every night for nigh upon eighteen years.