"How long have I slept? And where is Evelyn?" I asked.
"You have not opened your eyes to-day, dear child, until just this moment; and Miss Evelyn has not been able to sit up in her bed since she went to it last night, that shock yesterday overcame her so completely." By this time she was standing by my pillow, after laying aside her knitting, in a leisurely manner peculiar to her at all seasons. "But Mabel is in the next room; let me call her to you."
"Let her stay there," I interrupted, in a manner so unusual with me, whose first inquiry on reviving from illness had always been for Mabel, instead of Evelyn, that Mrs. Austin looked surprised and startled.
"What ails you, Miss Miriam? I thought Mabel was always your first thought; the little angel! She has been hanging over you tearfully all day; never going near Miss Evelyn at all. It is so strange she shows such partiality!"
Strange that one being on earth, and that one my sister, should love me better than Evelyn, in the eyes of her partial affection; and yet Evelyn treated her with positive disrespect every day of her life, as I never did; and often with severity as well. It was incomprehensible!
"Give me the panada," I said, grimly; "I am half starved, and must grow strong again to do my work. I am not nearly so weak as I usually am, though, after one of my seizures."
"You see you are outgrowing them, as Dr. Pemberton predicted you would. I declare, you _are_ hungry, poor child; you have not left a drop--pint-bowl too--with a gill of wine in it. Not going to get up, Miss Miriam? Oh, no; you must not venture to do that yet."
"Yes, I must get about again; I have much to do, and Evelyn must aid me, if able. Is she ill or only nervous?"
"Very ill, I think; she wrote a note to Dr. Craig and sent it last night, after you went to sleep; but he did not come."
"Quite naturally, since he had been absent some weeks. I could have told her," I said, sententiously; "indeed, I thought she knew it. Who carried her note?"
"Poor old man! The idea of sending him on such a wild-goose chase, after night. Papa would turn in his grave could he know he had been forced out in the rain at such an hour, for a woman's whim. I would have suffered tortures till morning first. Where was Franklin?"