Bad Hugh

Too much agitated to know just what he said, Aunt Eunice listened, as

one who heard not, noticing which, the doctor said: "You are not the right one to take these directions. Is there nobody

here less nervous than yourself? Who was that young lady standing by the

door when I came in? The one in white, I mean, with such a quantity of

curls?"

"Miss Johnson--our visitor. She can't do anything," Aunt Eunice replied,

trying to compose herself enough to know what she was doing.

But the doctor thought differently. Something of a physiognomist, he had

been struck with the expression of Alice's face, and felt sure that she

would be more efficient aid than Aunt Eunice herself. "I'll speak to

her," he said, stepping to the hall. But Alice was gone. She had stood

by the sickroom door long enough to hear Hugh's impassioned words

concerning his probable death--long enough to hear him ask that she

might pray for him; and then she stole away to where no ear, save that

of God, could hear the earnest prayer that Hugh Worthington might

live--or that dying, there might be given him a space in which to grasp

the faith, without which the grave is dark indeed.

Meantime, the Hugh for whom the prayer was made had fallen into a heavy

sleep, and Aunt Eunice noiselessly left the room, meeting in the hall

with Alice, who asked permission to go in and sit by him at least until

he awoke. Aunt Eunice consented, and with noiseless footsteps Alice

advanced into the darkened room, and after standing still for a moment

to assure herself that Hugh was really sleeping, stole softly to his

bedside and bent down to look at him, starting quickly at the strong

resemblance to somebody seen before. Who was it? Where was it? she asked

herself, her brain a labyrinth of bewilderment as she tried in vain to

recall the time or place where a face like this reposing upon the pillow

before her had met her view. Suddenly she remembered Irving Stanley, and

that between him and Hugh there was a relationship, and then she knew it

was the likeness to Irving Stanley, which she so plainly traced. Alice

hardly cared to acknowledge it, but as she looked at Hugh she felt that

his was really the handsomer, the more attractive face of the two. It

certainly was, as he lay there asleep, his long eyelashes resting upon

his flushed cheek, his dark hair curling in soft rings about his high,

white brow, his rich, brown beard glistening with perspiration, and his

lips slightly apart, showing a row of even teeth.

There were others than Alice praying for Hugh that summer afternoon,

for Muggins had gone from the brook to the cornfield, startling Adah

with the story of Hugh's sickness, and then launching out into a glowing

description of the new miss, "with her white gown and curls as long as

Rocket's tail."