“What is it, doctor? Oh, tell me what ails my darling?” Mrs. Burton asked, terribly frightened at the look on Georgie’s face, and the peculiar expression of her mouth. “Auntie,” Maude said, in a low whisper, “come with me; I’ll tell you;” and leading her frightened aunt into the hall, she told her as gently as possible that Georgie was paralyzed. It was true. The long-continued strain upon mind and nerve, which she had endured in guarding her secret, with the skeleton of detection always threatening her, added to the terrible shock of the previous night, had been more than nature could endure without a loud protest; and the prickly sensation she had felt creeping through every vein was the precursor to the fearful thing which had come upon her, striking her down as the lightning strikes the oak, and leaving just one-half of her helpless, motionless, dead. There was no feeling in any part of her right side; no power to move the soft, white hand, which lay just where they put it; no power to speak audibly in the pale lips whose last act had been to frame a tissue of falsehoods whereby she could steer safely through the labyrinth of woe in which she was entangled. Poor Georgie! There were hot tears shed for her that bright June morning, when the sun, which should have shone upon her bridal day, came up over the eastern hills, and looked in at the windows of the room where she lay so helpless and so still, knowing perfectly well what was doing and saying around; but having no power to tell them that she knew, save by the feeble pressure of the fingers of her left hand, and the slow shutting of her eyelids. Wistfully Georgie’s eyes followed each movement of the people around her, as if imploring aid, and resting longest upon Jack, who wept like a little child over his stricken sister. All her faults and errors were forgotten in this great calamity which had come so suddenly upon her; and he remembered only that she was his sister, the beautiful girl whom he had loved, and petted, and befriended, and chided, and scolded, and blamed, ever since he had been old enough to read her character aright. There were no scoldings, no chidings, no blaming now; nothing but love and tenderness; and the hot tears rained in torrents over his face, as, in obedience to a look in her eye, which he construed into a wish for him to come nearer to her, he bent his face to hers, and felt the cold lips trying to kiss his cheek, while the left hand crept feebly up to his head, and stroked and parted his hair. No one of all those present thought Jack one whit less manly for the great choking sobs which he smothered on Georgie’s neck, or the tears which dropped so fast upon her hair and brow.