Too much agitated to know just what he said, Aunt Eunice listened, as
one who heard not, noticing which, the doctor said: "You are not the right one to take these directions. Is there nobody
here less nervous than yourself? Who was that young lady standing by the
door when I came in? The one in white, I mean, with such a quantity of
curls?"
"Miss Johnson--our visitor. She can't do anything," Aunt Eunice replied,
trying to compose herself enough to know what she was doing.
But the doctor thought differently. Something of a physiognomist, he had
been struck with the expression of Alice's face, and felt sure that she
would be more efficient aid than Aunt Eunice herself. "I'll speak to
her," he said, stepping to the hall. But Alice was gone. She had stood
by the sickroom door long enough to hear Hugh's impassioned words
concerning his probable death--long enough to hear him ask that she
might pray for him; and then she stole away to where no ear, save that
of God, could hear the earnest prayer that Hugh Worthington might
live--or that dying, there might be given him a space in which to grasp
the faith, without which the grave is dark indeed.
Meantime, the Hugh for whom the prayer was made had fallen into a heavy
sleep, and Aunt Eunice noiselessly left the room, meeting in the hall
with Alice, who asked permission to go in and sit by him at least until
he awoke. Aunt Eunice consented, and with noiseless footsteps Alice
advanced into the darkened room, and after standing still for a moment
to assure herself that Hugh was really sleeping, stole softly to his
bedside and bent down to look at him, starting quickly at the strong
resemblance to somebody seen before. Who was it? Where was it? she asked
herself, her brain a labyrinth of bewilderment as she tried in vain to
recall the time or place where a face like this reposing upon the pillow
before her had met her view. Suddenly she remembered Irving Stanley, and
that between him and Hugh there was a relationship, and then she knew it
was the likeness to Irving Stanley, which she so plainly traced. Alice
hardly cared to acknowledge it, but as she looked at Hugh she felt that
his was really the handsomer, the more attractive face of the two. It
certainly was, as he lay there asleep, his long eyelashes resting upon
his flushed cheek, his dark hair curling in soft rings about his high,
white brow, his rich, brown beard glistening with perspiration, and his
lips slightly apart, showing a row of even teeth.
There were others than Alice praying for Hugh that summer afternoon,
for Muggins had gone from the brook to the cornfield, startling Adah
with the story of Hugh's sickness, and then launching out into a glowing
description of the new miss, "with her white gown and curls as long as
Rocket's tail."