the crib, she hurried out into the passage, and, pausing at the
bottom of the stairs leading to the room above, called several
times--

"Anna! Anna! Anna!"

But no answer came. The domestic thus summoned had fallen into her
first sound sleep, and the voice did not penetrate her ears.

"Anna!" once more called Mrs. Wilkinson.

There was no response, but the reverberation of her own voice
returned upon the oppressive silence. She now hurried back to her
sick child, whose low, troubled moaning had not been hushed for a
moment.

There was no apparent change. Ella lay with her half-opened eyes,
showing, by the white line, that the balls were turned up
unnaturally; with her crimsoned cheeks, and with the nervous motions
of her lips and slight twitchings of her hands, at first noticed
with anxiety and alarm.

Mrs. Wilkinson was but little familiar with sickness in children;
and knew not the signs of real danger--or, rather, what unusual
signs such as those now apparent in Ella really indicated. But she
was sufficiently alarmed, and stood over the child, with her eyes
fixed eagerly upon her.

Again she tried to arouse her from so strange and unnatural a state,
but with as little effect as at first.