nd the pain all
through my body, and my head that bums like fire ... My God! It is
certain that I am to die."

A little before daylight they both fen asleep; but soon Maria was
awakened by her father who laid his hand upon her shoulder and
whispered:--"I am going to harness the horse to go to Mistook for
the doctor, and on the way through La Pipe I shall also speak to the
cure. It is heart-breaking to hear her moan Eke this."

Her eyes open in the ghostly dawn, Maria gave ear to the sounds of
his departure: the banging of the stable door against the wall; the
horse's hoofs thudding on the wood of the alley; muffled commands to
Charles Eugene: "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" Then the
tinkle of the sleigh-bells. In the silence that followed, the sick
woman groaned two or three times in her sleep; Maria watched the wan
light stealing into the house and thought of her father's journey,
trying to reckon up the distances he must travel.

From their house to Honfleur, eight miles; from Honfleur to La Pipe,
six. There her father would speak with the cure, and then pursue his
way to Mistook. She corrected herself, and for the ancient Indian
name that the people of the country use, gave it the official one
bestowed in baptism by the church--St. Coeur de Marie. From La Pipe
to St. Coeur de Marie, eight miles ... --Eight and six and then eight.
Growing confused, she said to herself--"Anyway it is far, and the
roads will be heavy."

Again she felt affrighted at their loneliness, which once hardly
gave her a thought. All was well enough when people were in health
and merry, and one had no need of help; but with trouble or sickness
the woods around seemed to shut them cruelly away from all
succour--the woods where horses sink to the chest in snow, where
storms smother one in mid-April.

The mother strove to turn in her sleep, waked with a cry of anguish,
and the continual moaning began anew. Maria rose and sat by the bed,
thinking of the long day just beginning in which she would have
neither help nor counsel.

All the dragging hours were burdened with lamentable sound; the
groaning from the bed where the sick woman lay never ceased, and
haunted the narrow wooden dwelling. Now and then some household
noise broke in upon it: the clashing of plates, the clang of the
opened stove door, the sound of feet on the planking, Tit'Be
stealing into the house, clumsy and anxious, to ask for news.

"Is she no better?"

Maria