Fanny had sunk back on her white pillows, upon the little couch before the window from which she watched for me. How inspired and beautiful she looked!--she who was never thought of as beautiful before,--the very transfigured likeness of herself, as I hope one day to behold her in glory,--and so like our mother, too! She lay still, as she had been ordered, lest she should faint again; but by the cheerful lamp that stood on the stand beside her, I saw her smile as she had never used to smile. The eyes, that I left swollen and downcast, were raised large and bright. But as she slowly opened her arms and clasped me to her, I felt tears on my cheek; and her voice was broken as she said, "Katy, Katy! O, thank God! I was afraid I never should see you again. Now I have everything that I want in the world!" It was hard to leave her when I was called so soon; but she knew that it was right, and made me go; and when I was allowed to return to her, she lay in obedient but most happy silence for all the rest of the evening, with those new splendid eyes fixed on my face, her dim complexion glowing, and her hands clasping mine. After I had put her to bed, and laid myself down in my own beside her, I felt her reach out of hers and touch me with a little pat two or three times, as a child will a new doll, to make sure that it has not been merely dreaming of it. At first, I asked her if she wanted anything; but she said, "Only to feel that you are really there"; and when, after a very sound and long rest, I awoke, there was her solemn, peaceful gaze still watching me, like that of an unsleeping guardian angel. She had slept too, however, remarkably long and well, whether for joy, as she thought, or from the opium which I had been startled to see given her the night before. She said she had had many scruples about taking it; but the Doctor insisted; and she did not think it her duty on the whole to make him any trouble by opposing his prescriptions, when we owed him so much. Poor Fanny! How hard it was for her to owe any one "anything, but to love one another." The Doctor's bulletin that morning was, "Remarkably comfortable." But in the forenoon, while Fanny after breakfast took a nap, I snatched an opportunity to cross-question Mrs. Physick, from whom I knew I could sooner or later obtain all she knew,--the _sooner_ it would be, if she had anything good to tell; as, in my inexperience, I was almost sure she must have.