"I've staid till I am in an ager. I might as well finish the night here, I spose." She called me after midnight, for she had not left Verry, who had been attacked with one of her mysterious disorders. "You can do nothing for her; but I am scared out, when she faints so dreadful; I don't like to be alone." Veronica could not speak, but she shook her head at me to go away. Her will seemed to be concentrated against losing consciousness; it slipped from her occasionally, and she made a rotary motion with her arms, which I attempted to stop, but her features contracted so terribly, I let her alone. "Mustn't touch her," said Temperance, whose efforts to relieve her were confined to replacing the coverings of the bed, and drawing her nightgown over her bosom, which she often threw off again. Her breath scarcely stirred her breast. I thought more than once she did not breathe at all. Its delicate, virgin beauty touched me with a holy pity. We sat by her bed in silence a long time, and although it was freezing cold, did not suffer. Suddenly she turned her head and closed her eyes. Temperance softly pulled up the clothes over her and whispered: "It is over for this time; but Lord, how awful it is! I hoped she was cured of these spells." In a few minutes she asked, "What time is it?" "It must be about eleven," Temperance replied; but it was nearly four. She dozed again, but, opening her eyes presently, made a motion toward the window. "There's no help for it," muttered Temperance, "she must go." I understood her, and put my arm under Verry's neck to raise her. Temperance wrapped the quilt round her, and we carried her to the window. Temperance pushed open the pane; an icy wind blew against us. "It is the winter that kills little Verry," she said, in a childlike voice. "God's breath is cold over the world, and my life goes. But the spring is coming; it will come back." I looked at Temperance, whose face was so corrugated with the desire for crying and the effort to keep from it, that for the life of me, I could not help smiling. As soon as I smiled I laughed, and then Temperance gave way to crying and laughing together. Veronica stared, and realized the circumstances in a second. She walked back to the bed, laughing faintly, too. "Go to bed, do. You have been here a long time, have you?" I left Temperance tucking the clothes about her, kissing her, and calling her "deary and her best child." I could not go to bed at once, for Fanny was on my hearth before the fire, which she had rekindled, watching the boiling of something.