watched his cheek, as he leaned over her, to feel her pulse, wondering what made such a beautiful color steal over it growing brighter and brighter, till it looked as if the fire had been glowing upon it. She did not know how very young he was, and this was the first time he had ever been called to visit a patient alone, and that she, little child as she was, was a very formidable object to him--considered as a being for whose life he might be in a measure responsible. "I would give her a composing mixture," said he, gently releasing the slender wrist of his patient--"her brain seems greatly excited, but I do not apprehend anything like an inflammation need be dreaded. She is very nervous, and must be kept quiet." Helen felt such inexpressible relief, that forgetting her character of an invalid, she lifted her head, and gave him such a radiant look of gratitude it quite startled him. "See!" exclaimed Louis, rubbing his hands, "how bright she looks. The doctor's coming has made her well." "Don't make such a fuss, brother, I can't study," cried Mittie, tossing her hair impatiently from her brow. "I don't believe she's any more sick than I am, she just does it to be petted." "Mittie!" said her mother, glancing towards the young doctor. Mittie, with a sudden motion of the head peculiar to herself, brought the hair again over her face, till it touched the leaves of the book, in whose contents she seemed absorbed; but she peeped at the young doctor through her thick, falling locks, and thought if she were sick, she would much rather send for him than old Doctor Sennar. The next morning Helen was really ill and feverish. The excitement of the previous evening had caused a tension of the brain, which justified the mother's fears. At night she became delirious, and raved incoherently about _the worm-eaten traveler_, the spinning-woman, and the grave-house to which they were bound. Mrs. Gleason sat on one side of her, holding her restless hand in hers, while Miss Thusa applied wet napkins to her burning temples. The mother shuddered as she listened to the child's wild words, and something of the truth flashed upon her mind. "I fear," said she, raising her eyes, and fixing them mildly but reproachfully on Miss Thusa's face--"you have been exciting my little girl's imagination in a dangerous manner, by relating tales of dreadful import. I know you have done it in kindness," added she, fearful of giving pain, "but Helen is different from other children, and cannot bear the least excitement." "She's always asking me to tell her stories," answered Miss Thusa, "and I love the dear child too well to deny her. There is something very uncommon about her. I never saw a child that would set and listen to old people as she will. I never did think she would live to grow up; she wasn't well last night, or she wouldn't have been scared; I noticed that one cheek was red as a cherry, and the other as white as snow--a sign the fever was in her blood."