I remembered how often Mrs. Lee, in her nervous paroxysms, had been soothed to rest by the gentle force of my own will. Indeed, I sometimes fancy that some peculiar gift has been granted to me, by which physical suffering grows less in my presence. "Shall I go up with you, Mrs. Bosworth?" I said, inspired with hope by this new idea. "He may recognize me as an old friend." "Oh, yes, yes!" she exclaimed, leading the way. "Mother, will you come?" CHAPTER XXVI. SICK-BED FANCIES. We mounted the staircase, a broad, old-fashioned flight of steps, surmounted with heavy balustrades of black oak. There was a thick carpet running up them; but, lightly as we trod, the keen ear of the invalid detected a strange presence, and I heard his voice, muffled and rough with fever, calling out, "Yes, yes, I knew, I knew, I knew that she would come!" Then he broke into the notes of some opera-song. There was a cool, artificial twilight in the chamber when we entered it; but through the bars of the outer blinds a gleam of sunshine shot across the room, and broke against the wall opposite the great, high-posted bed on which young Bosworth was lying. The chamber was large, and but for the closed blinds would have been cheerful. As it was, a great easy-chair, draped with white dimity, loomed up like a snow-drift near the bed; which being clothed in like spotless fashion, gave a ghastly appearance to everything around. Young Bosworth lay upon the bed with his arms feebly uplifted, and his great, wild eyes wandering almost fiercely after the sunbeams which came and went like golden arrows, as the branches of an elm-tree near the window changed their position. I went up to the bed, and touched the young man's wrist. The pulse that leaped against my fingers was like the blows of a tiny hammer; his eyes turned on my face, and he clutched my hand, laughing pleasantly. "How cool your hand is!" he said, with a child-like murmur. "You have been among the clover-blossoms; their breath is all around me." "Yes," I said, dropping into his own monotone without an effort, "I came through the meadows, and brought some of the flowers with me. See how fresh and sweet they are." He took the flowers eagerly, grasping them with both hands. "Did she send them?" he whispered, mysteriously. "Did she?" I smiled, but would not answer. The delusion seemed pleasant, and it would be cruelty to disturb it. He held the blossoms caressingly in his hand; a smile wandered over his lips, and he whispered over soft fragments of some melody that I remembered as one of Jessie's favorites. Directly the flowers dropped from his grasp, and he began to search after the sunbeam again, clutching at it feverishly, and looking in his hands with vague wonder when he found them empty. I do not think the young man recognized me at all; but my presence certainly aroused new associations.