My aunt sat silently weeping.  I kissed her without speaking, and went back to my chair by Annie’s bed.  I dropped the two drops of medicine into a spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I could reach it instantly.  It was just three o’clock in the morning.  Hour after hour passed.  I could not hear Annie’s breath.  My own dinned in my ears like the whir of mills.  A terror such as I can never describe took possession of me.  What if I were to kill Annie?  How could I look composed? speak naturally?  What would she say?  If I could but know and have my answer ready!

I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie’s life.  When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the room, tears came into my eyes.  I felt as if angels were watching outside.  A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet.  It was no more than a hair’s breadth, but it was companionship to me.  Slowly, steadily it came towards me.  I forgot all else in watching it.  To this day I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder.  The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine.  The bells rang for schools; the distant hum of the town began.  Still there was no stir, no symptom of life, in the colorless face on the pillow.  The sunbeam had crept nearly to my feet.  Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet the golden messenger.  Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached my hand to it instead.  Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, hastened Annie’s waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily on the pillow and opened her eyes.  I saw that she knew me.  I wondered how I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look.  I smiled as if we were at play together, and said,—­

“Good morning, dear.”

She smiled languidly and said, “How came I in mamma’s bed?”

I said, quietly, “Take this medicine, darling;” and almost before the drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep again.

When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his hands.  I knew that Annie was safe.

Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and leading her back to Annie’s bedside, pointed to the little beads of moisture on her forehead and said,—­

“Saved!”

The revulsion was too much for the poor mother’s heart.  She sank to the floor.  He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of that day my Aunt Ann, that “hard and unsympathizing woman,” passed from one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great fear for her life as we had been for Annie’s.

At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again.  She was perfectly tranquil, but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white counterpane.