Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/255

Rh exhausted and wearied out, leaving the woman and her husband to take care of her. I suppose I had been in bed and asleep about an hour when I was startled by hearing "Iangy, Iangy," called in tones of terror and dismay, and a very sudden loud knocking at my door.

I sprang to the floor but was so frightened and bewildered for a few moments I could scarcely get my senses together. At length I distinguished the voice of Mr. W calling on me. In a great hurry, I ran down the stairs and found the piano upset, all the bed clothes and the bed on the floor, and the woman madly dancing on the slats of the bedstead.

I called to her in a stern voice, and asked her what she was doing. She leaped down off the bed when she heard my voice and, throwing herself on my neck, told me they had been trying to kill her all the time I was gone, and that I must not leave her again. She raved till the morning, when I got her quiet and put her to bed. I was sitting beside her, while she was lying there, when some ladies came in to inquire after her health. Thinking she was asleep they sat down and began to question me; among other questions they asked me if I was not afraid of her. Before I had time to reply she started up and said, in a furious voice, "And what if she is, is that your business?" The ladies were so frightened they ran out of the room as quick as they could. She then turned to me and said, quite playfully, "Did I not do that well, Iangy?" Their hopes of her getting better were not verified; she continued to get worse until they heard of a vacancy in the Asylum at Columbus, when they at once made arrangements to have her taken there.

There were three of us in the carriage; the woman,