ou've on'y took one dose yit,' said Machiavel. 'You
must give it time. I'll pour you out another.' Her back was towards the
patient as she clattered about among the glasses on the table with a
shaking hand. She poured out the wizard's potion, the phial clinking
against the edge of the glass like a castanet, and her heart beating so
that she almost feared Julia would hear it The girl at first pettishly
refused the draught, but Mrs. Jenny, in her guilty agitation, made short
work of her objections, and poured it down her throat almost by main
force.

'Maids must do as their elders bid 'em,' she said, as she returned the
glass to its place.

'It doesn't taste the same,' moaned the patient

'You're like all th' other sick folk I iver nursed. As fall o' fancies
as you can stick,' said Mrs. Jenny. 'Lie quiet, and try an' go to
sleep.'

The girl lay silent, and Mrs. Jenny, more than half wishing the whole
business had never been begun, sat and listened to her breathing. She
stirred and sighed once or twice, but after a while lay so utterly still
that the old lady ventured to approach the bed. Julia's face was almost
as white as her pillow, and her breath was so light that it hardly
stirred the coverlet above her bosom.

'It's a-workin,' said Mrs. Rusker.

VI

Mrs. Jenny's simple faith in the talents of Rufus Smith underwent
a severe trial during the ensuing night. She had left Julia still
sleeping, and the memory of the last glance she had bestowed upon the
white face in the light of the carefully-shaded candle haunted her
all night, and roused a foreboding too dismal to be expressed, or even
formulated in definite thought. The matchmaker lay and trembled all
night at that terrible idea, and again the pale-faced dawn visited a
sleepless pillow, and found her haggard with anxiety and lack of sleep.
Juliet's query to the Friar had been, 'What if the potion should not
work?' but Mrs. Jenny's terrified inquiry of her own soul was, 'What if
it had worked too well?' What if it had killed Julia in very deed? It
was too horrible to happen, Mrs. Jenny said to herself. Too horrible to
think of. But, if it had happened, she would have nothing else to think
of all her life, and the fancy drove her nearly mad.

She was dressed and afoot even earlier than on the preceding morning.
She crept out and encircled the Mountain Farm in a radius of a mile
or thereabouts, looking anxiously towards it at every step, as if its
silent