“Quit it!” his wife admonished the girl, who passed her hand over her face as if seeking to obliterate the obnoxious expression. “Ye go right up-steers ter bed. I’m goin’ ter gin ye some yerb tea.” She took down a small bag, turning from it some dried leaves into her hand, and looked at them mysteriously, as if she were about to conjure with them. The girl rose obediently, and went up the rude, uncovered stairs to the roof-room. After an interval Mrs. Jessup observed the babbling baby pointing upward. Among the shadows half-way up the flight Alethea was sitting on a step, looking down vacantly at them. But upon their sudden outcry she seemed to rouse herself, rose, and disappeared above. XIX. Gwinnan, upon recovering consciousness, showed no retrospective interest in the scene at the depot. He remarked imperatively to the physician whom he found in attendance that it was necessary for him to leave during the afternoon,—in fact, as soon as possible,—to hold court in a distant county. He added, for the instruction of the doctor, that the clerk could open court, and had no doubt done so on Monday and Tuesday, and would be obliged to repeat this on Wednesday, without the presence of the presiding judge, but Thursday was the last day for which the statute had provided the alternative. He evidently expected that if the physician had any flimsy objections he would withdraw them before this grave necessity, understanding that this was no time for the indulgence of professional whimseys. There was something so arrogantly disregardful of any other claims upon his attention, so belittling of merely corporeal considerations, that the physician would have been a little less than medical had he been able to repress a certain sense of domination as he answered, “Well, that happened more than two weeks ago, judge, and I reckon court was adjourned over to the next term.” Gwinnan became aware with a sort of amaze that the hands he lifted did not seem his own; that his head was light and giddy, or dully aching; that he was fretful and helpless; that no manner of respect was paid to his views. He was hardly pleased by the exchange of identity with this ill-adjusted, listless, forlorn being; the less when he finally grew able to stand upon his feet again, and was informed that for the next month or so he must do nothing but seek to interest and entertain the invalid, to see that he forbore to dwell on business, to seek to occupy his attention with passing events, to divert him with trifles.