Without a thought of herself she rushed across the room, understanding what must have happened:  the shaky little old window frame had blown in, for the tempest came straight from that direction.  Yes, she stumbled upon it, lying on the floor.  She picked it up and tried to replace it, but an instant’s struggle convinced her that this was impossible.  With a cry she ran to the bed, herself chilled through, her heart beating fast with fear.  How long had Granny been lying there in the onslaught of wind and cold?

She seized upon the small figure huddled under the blankets, lifted it, blankets and all, and bore it into her own room.  She laid it on her own cot, covered it with a mountain of clothing, and crushed into place the door between the two rooms.  Then, shaking with chill, her teeth chattering, she dressed, answering the old lady’s one shivering complaint: 

“I thought I was very cold, in my dreams, Charlotte.  What has happened?”

“It’s all right, Granny,—­you are safe in my room.  I’ll get you warm in a minute.”

She ran down to the kitchen, heated water over a spirit-lamp, and made a stiff little hot drink, which she carried upstairs, with a hot-water bottle.  The bag at Granny’s feet, the stimulating posset drunk, Charlotte felt easier about her charge and went next at the task of making her comfortable for the remainder of the night.  She ran down again and made up the fire in the fireplace, convinced that she must get the old lady downstairs, now that with each blast the terrible wind was filling one room with the storm and battling at the little old door to make an entrance into the other.  Then she put on a coat, and went up to wrestle with Granny’s bed, while the wind swept round her, and the snow flew across the room and stung her cheeks.  It was a hard task, getting the bed apart and down the stairs, but she accomplished it, and set it up in the living-room, far from the windows and with one side to the fire.  Then she brought down springs and mattress, warmed the latter thoroughly at the blaze, and put it in place.

“Now, dear,” she said presently, bending over the cot, “I’m going to take you down by the fire.  It’s too cold for you up here, and you’ll be perfectly comfortable there.”

Granny, wrapped in many blankets, was not quite so light a load as usual, but Charlotte staggered down with her, and soon had her at ease in her bed, freshly made up and warm with surrounding blankets.  The room itself could not be so quickly warmed, but Granny knew no discomfort nor realized that her niece, with all her exertions, was still shaking now and then with chill and excitement.  She had small notion of the anxiety Charlotte was suffering concerning her frail self.

“You must get the window replaced at once, my dear,” she remarked, sleepily, from among her pillows.  “It must be really quite a storm.  I could feel the bed shake.  Down here it seems quieter.”