Old Dr. Dulan entered the room at
this moment, and looking down at the child, and taking his thin, cold
hand in his own, felt his pulse, and turning to the wretched mother,
who had fixed her anxious gaze imploringly upon him, he said:
"Hannah, my dear sister---- But, oh, God! I cannot deceive you," and
abruptly left the room.
"Elizabeth," said he to his daughter, who was sitting by the parlor
fire, "go into the next room and remain with your aunt, and if
anything occurs summon me at once; and, John, saddle my horse quickly,
and ride over to Mrs. Caply and tell her to come over here."
Mrs. Caply was the layer-out of the dead for the neighborhood.
How tediously wore that dreary night away in the sickroom, where the
insensible child was watched by his mother and her friend! The
flickering taper, which both forgot to snuff, would fitfully flare up
and reveal the watchers, the bed, and the prostrate form of the pale,
stiff, motionless boy, with his eyes flared back with a fixed and
horrid stare. In the parlor, a party equally silent and gloomy kept
their vigil. Dr. Dulan, his son and the old woman, whose fearful
errand made her very presence a horror, formed the group.
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