Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/285

 But it would have made, possibly, but little difference in fact how the terrible story was told. No cautious words, however carefully chosen—no tender, pitying tones, however sympathetic—could have robbed that awful communication of its fearful meaning. But they found poor Alice wildly raving in a relapse of the fever which her grandmother's devotion and skill had so nearly averted, and they took charge of the desolate household, and watched over the suffering girl with sisterly love.

But while Alice, blessed by her very unconsciousness, lay battling with the fierce fever which had fastened upon her, and tended by the loving care of the few true and faithful friends whom misfortune and danger only drew more closely to her side, her grandmother's free and active spirit chafed in her close confinement within the narrow limits of the jail.

The clever, bustling, active housekeeper, who had kept herself busy with all the details of her little household, and to whom fresh air and active out-of-door exercise seemed to be a very necessity of her being,