Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/121

Rh in a dream and likely to wake up any minute.

The communicating room was shrouded in darkness like the other, and when Betty had raised the shades she found it furnished as another bedroom. Evidently the old sisters had chosen to live entirely on the first floor of the house.

The woman in the square iron bed looked startlingly like Bob, too, but, unlike her sister, her eyes were dark. She lay quietly, her cheeks scarlet and her hands nervously picking at the counterpane. When she saw Betty she struggled to a sitting posture and tried to talk. It was pitiable to watch her efforts for her voice was quite gone. Only when Betty put her ear close down to the trembling lips could she hear the words.

"Hope!" murmured the sick woman hoarsely. "Hope—have you seen her?"

"Yes, she asked for you, too." Betty tried to nod brightly. "I'm going to do a few things here first and get you both something to eat, and then I'm going for a doctor."

Miss Charity sank back, evidently satisfied, and Betty hurried out to the kitchen. The wood-box was well-filled and she had little difficulty in starting a fire in the stove. Like the rest of the farm homes, the only available water supply seemed to be the pump in the yard, and Betty