p taller than itself, and the great clump of
lilacs by the front door.

"I went up the path unsteadily; my head was swimming, and there was a
curious noise in my ears. I pushed open the door. There was father with
the open Bible before him, and his spectacles lying upon it; the room
was bright with the fire and the light of the pine-knot, and mother was
spinning on the little wheel, as she frequently did in the evening. Her
face wore its own sweet, peaceful look, but when she saw me the
expression changed to one of alarm. She said afterward that I looked
more like a ghost than anything else.

"Why, Mercy!' she cried.

"Father turned slowly round, and beyond that I remember nothing. I fell
on the floor in a dead faint.

"Mother said I talked all night about what had been troubling me.
Through all my delirium, I had an aching consciousness that Ephraim was
lost to me forever. I would rise to go to him, as I thought, but when I
reached the place where he had been, there was only Prudence or
Semantha.

"In the morning the doctor came, and said it was scarlet fever. The
other children had got over it in childhood, but it had waited for me
till now.

"I was very sick for a whole month. All that time mother was an angel of
goodness to me. When I was able to sit up, she told me that Ephraim had
been to inquire for me often. But she said no more, and I could not tell
her the trouble then.

"I was wasted to a shadow, and was as weak as an hour-old babe. Mother
used to tuck me up in the great arm-chair, and then the boys would push
the chair to the window, where I could look out.

"A great snow had fallen during my sickness. It had begun the night I
came home, as Semantha predicted, and the roads had been almost
impassable. But they were quite good again now, and father said the time
had come for him to go down below. It was late in February, and he said
we should not have a great deal more snow, he thought, and if he waited
till the spring thaws came, there would be no getting to Boston.

"It was arranged that the oldest boy at home should go with father, so
that there would be nobody left with mother and me but Jem and David.
Jem was eight years old, and David six come May; but they were both
smart, and we thought, with their help, we could take care of the cattle
till father came back.

"I could not do much yet, and I sat in my arm-chair while mother fried
doughnuts, and baked great loaves of bread, and made puddin