indows were once thickly curtained. The yellow silk curtains
inundated with a sickly light a room where everything was so still, so
sad.

There was an invalid in the house, little Neddy, the son of Benjamin
Hetfalusy's daughter, the son of that once so haughty gentlewoman,
Leonora Hetfalusy.

This poor lady had been visited by many a terrible calamity. After a
youth passed amidst feverish excitements, she had married Squire
Szephalmi, and there had been two children of this marriage, a son and a
daughter. Edward and Emma were their names. The children were constantly
bickering with each other, but this after all is only what happens every
day with brothers and sisters.

One day the little girl disappeared, nobody knew what had become of her.
They searched for her in the woods and in the fields, and in the pond
close by; they explored the whole country side, their little pet
daughter was nowhere to be found.

From that very day Neddy fell sick. He lost his fresh ruddy colour. He
could neither eat nor sleep. They laid him on his bed, a fever tormented
him. At night he would wander in his speech, and at such times he would
constantly be calling for his little sister Emma; he would cry out and
weep, and his features would stiffen and his eyes would almost start
out of his head till he looked like one possessed.

The doctors said that it was epilepsy. They treated him in every
possible way. It was all of no avail. He grew worse from day to day, and
his father and mother stood and wept by his bed morning after morning.

* * * * *

It was one of those evenings when the wind rages outside and dashes rain
mingled with hail against the window-panes. The child was crying and
moaning in his bed, out of doors the dogs were howling, the wind was
whistling, and the freely-swinging pump-handle creaked and groaned like
a shrieking ghost.

"Ah!" wailed the sick child in his sleep, half rising up. "Emma! Let in
little Emma! Don't you hear how she is crying outside--she cannot get
through the door ... she is shivering, she is afraid of the dark ... go
out and look...!"

"There is nobody outside, my darling, nobody, my poor sick little son."

"There is, there is. I hear someone scratching at the door, fumbling at
the latch; she is stroking the dogs; don't you hear how she is moaning,
dear, dear mother, don't you hear it?"

"Go to sleep, my sick darling, nobody is coming here, the whole house is
l