his house open, and a slender
female form bend forth, and look earnestly into the darkness. A moment
or two, she stood thus, and then stepped forth quickly, and leaning
upon the iron railing of the door steps, fixed eagerly her eyes upon
the slowly receding forms of the two men.

"John! John!" she called, in half suppressed tones.

But her voice did not reach the ear of her husband, whose form she well
knew, even in the obscurity of night.

Gliding down the steps, Mrs. Wilkinson ran a few paces along the
pavement, but suddenly stopped as some thought passed through her mind;
and, turning, went back to the door she had left. There she stood
gazing after her husband, until she saw him enter the tavern mentioned
as being kept by a man named Parker, when, with a heavy, fluttering
sigh, she passed into the house, and ascended to the chamber from which
she had, a few minutes before, come down.

It was past eleven o'clock. The two domestics had retired, and Mrs.
Wilkinson was alone with her sick child. Ella's moan of suffering came
on her ear the instant she re-entered the room, and she stepped quickly
to the crib, and bent over to look into its face. The cheeks of the
child were flushed with fever to a bright crimson, and she was moving
her head from side to side, and working her lips as if there was
something in her mouth. Slight twitching motions of the arms and hands
were also noticed by the mother. Her eyes were partly open.

"Will Ella have a drink of water?" said Mrs. Wilkinson, placing her
hand under the child's head, and slightly raising it from the pillow.

But Ella did not seem to hear.

"Say--love, will you have some water?"

There was no sign that her words reached the child's ears.

A deeper shade of trouble than that which already rested on the
mother's face glanced over it.

"Ella! Ella!" Mrs. Wilkinson slightly shook the child.

The only response was the muttering of some incoherent words, and a
continued moaning as if pain were disturbing her sleep.

The mother now bent low over her child, and eagerly marked the
expression of her face and the character of her breathing. Then she
laid a hand upon her cheek. Instantly it was withdrawn with a quick
start, but as quickly replaced again.

"What a burning fever!" she murmured. Then she added, in a tone of
anxiety,

"How strangely she works her mouth! I don't like this constant rolling
of her head. What can it mean? Ella! Ella!"

And she shook the