Hour after hour passed away. The darling child looked upon us as if she
would have given the world to speak to us, or to weep, but she uttered no
sound. Now and then she drew a long breath as though preparing to say
something, but still she was mute. She often put her hand to her throat,
as if there was some pain or obstruction there.

I never can, while I live, lose one line of that mournful and terrible
portrait--the face of my stricken child. As hour after hour passed away,
without bringing the smallest change or amendment, we grew both alarmed,
and at length absolutely terrified for her safety.

We called in a physician toward night, and told him that we had reason to
suspect that the child had somehow been frightened, and that in no other
way could we at all account for the extraordinary condition in which he
found her.

This was a man, I may as well observe, though I do not name him, of the
highest eminence in his profession, and one in whose skill, from past
personal experience, I had the best possible reasons for implicitly
confiding.

He asked a multiplicity of questions, the answers to which seemed to
baffle his attempts to arrive at a satisfactory diagnosis. There was
something undoubtedly anomalous in the case, and I saw plainly that there
were features in it which puzzled and perplexed him not a little.

At length, however, he wrote his prescription, and promised to return at
nine o'clock. I remember there was something to be rubbed along her
spine, and some medicines beside.