Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/31

 little figure of Mrs. Pratt entered, well lighted up by the candle she held in one hand, while in the other she bore a smoking bowl of tea. Her own cheeks were somewhat flushed from bending over the fire. She set the candle on the high bureau, tasted the tea herself once or twice, and then, without much ceremony, poured the scalding draught down her patient's throat; after which she felt her pulse again, and asked to see her tongue.

"I declare for 't" she cried, "if you're not better a'ready! There never was anything like my pennyr'yal tea for stoppin' a cold off short! Now you turn over and go right to sleep, and you'll be as good as new in the mornin'."

The old lady meant kindly; but what words could sound kind, spoken in a high falsetto? Poor Aunt Betsy! I wonder if she herself realized what she missed in never hearing the voices of her fellow-creatures in their natural tones. No one could ever speak tenderly to her, nor soothingly, nor confidentially. All those softer accents, so much more eloquent than words, must be forever lost to her; she could only know the voices of her friends in the harsh, strained pitch which they must take to reach her ears.

Days and weeks went by after Betsy's wonderful cure and the secret of her escapade was still her own. She shrank more and more from confessing what she had done, and yet she was tortured by the feeling that it had been a "dread-