Again, I fancied that another beside Lizzie was sick, for in mother’s room, contiguous to mine, there was a low hum of voices, agoing in and out, a careful shutting of the door, and gradually I got the impression that Jamie, my beautiful baby brother, was connected with all this, for I heard them talk of scarlet fever, and it’s going hard with him. But I had no desire or power to ask the why or wherefore; and so time wore on, until there came a day when it seemed that the reverie beneath the grape-vine was coming true. There was the same roll of wheels, the tread of many feet, and through the closed doors I heard a mournful strain, sung by trembling voices, while from afar, I caught the notes of a tolling bell. I was much alone that day, and once, for more than an hour, there was no one with me excepting grandma, who frequently removed her spectacles to wipe the moisture which gathered upon them. From that day I grew worse, and they sent to Spencer for Dr. Lamb, who, together with Dr. Griffin, held a council over me, and said that I must die. I saw mother when they told her. She was standing by the window, from which the black shawl had been removed, for nothing disturbed the little girl now, and the window was wide open, so that the summer air might cool the burning head, from which the matted yellow hair had all been shorn. She turned pale as death, and with a cry of anguish, pressed her hand upon her side; but she did not weep. I wondered at it then, and thought she cared less than Lizzie, who sat at the foot of the bed, sobbing so loudly that the fever burned more fiercely in my veins, and the physician said it must not be; she must leave the room, or keep quiet. It was Monday, and a few hours afterward, as Sally was passing the door, grandma handed her my dirty, crumpled sun-bonnet, bidding her wash it and put it away. Sally’s voice trembled as she replied, “No, no, leave it as it is, for when she’s gone, nothing will look so much like her as that jammed bonnet with its chewed up strings.” A gush of tears was grandma’s only answer, and after I got well, I found the bonnet carefully rolled up in a sheet of clean white paper and laid away in Sally’s drawer. There were days and nights of entire unconsciousness, and then with the vague, misty feeling of one awakening from a long, disturbed sleep, I awoke again to life and reason. The windows of my room were closed; but without, I heard the patter of the September rain, and the sound of the autumnal wind as it swept past the house. Gathered at my side were my father, mother, brothers, sisters, grandmother; and all, as my eye rested upon their faces, I thought, were paler and more careworn than when I last looked upon them. Something, too, in their dress disturbed me; but, before I could speak, a voice which I knew to be Dr. Griffin’s, said “She is better—she will live.”