Delilah sat in the great rush-bottomed chair by the sparkling fire, knitting, while Judith, with some work in her lap, sat close by the bed, and occasionally talked hopefully to Jacqueline.
"How sad it is!" presently said Jacqueline; "the peach-trees are all in bloom, and the buds will be killed by this snow--and the little hyacinths that are just coming up--all the young growing things will die to-day."
"Not the plants, dear--only the blossoms," replied Judith, cheerfully. "In a week they will have forgotten all about this snow."
All day Jacqueline seemed affected by the weather. Barn Elms, never a cheerful place at any time, was apt to be funereal when winter blasts swept the branches of the melancholy poplars and elms against the sides of the house, and when the wind howled amid the loosely built chimneys. A blackbird had begun building her nest in the tree nearest Jacqueline's window; and often, during the long days when she had lain in her bed, she had watched the bird flying and fluttering back and forth. The wind, which raged fitfully, came on stronger toward the afternoon. It lashed the still bare branches of the trees, beating them frantically about. The nest soon went. The poor bird, flying wildly around the place where it had been, was suddenly caught by a swaying branch, and, numbed with the cold, was dashed against the window. Jacqueline almost shrieked. Judith ran down-stairs, and out bareheaded in the sleet and snow, and found the bird--but it was already dead. When she went back, Jacqueline was crying.
"See how it is, Judith--everything that is young and weak will die in this weather."
A book lay on the bed beside Jacqueline--Jack Throckmorton had brought it over to her a day or two before. Jacqueline, laboriously--for she was very weak--turned over the pages and showed a paragraph to Judith:
"And the fire is lighted and the hall warmed, and it rains and it snows and it storms without. Then cometh in a sparrow and flieth about the hall. It cometh in at one door and goeth out at another. While it is within, it is not touched with the winter storm. _But that is only for a moment, only for the least space._"
Judith thought that Jacqueline, in her simplicity, had taken it literally; but she had not.