Waking to Consciousness

The sultry August glided by, and in the warm, still days of late
September Hugh awoke from the sleep which had so long hung over him.
Raising himself upon his elbow, he glanced around the room. There were
the table, the stand, the mirror, the curtains, the vases, and the
flowers, but what--did he see aright, or did his eyes deceive him? and
the perspiration stood thickly about his mouth, as in the bouquet, that
morning arranged, he recognized the gay flowers of autumn, not such as
he had gathered for Alice, delicate summer flowers, but rich and
gorgeous with a later bloom.

"I must have been sick," he whispered, and pressing his hand to his
still throbbing head, he tried to reveal and form into some definite
shape the events which had seemed, and which seemed to him still, like
so many phantoms of the brain.

Was it a dream--his mother's tears upon his face, his mother's voice
calling him her Hughey boy, his mother's sobs beside him? Was it, could
it be all a dream that she, the Golden Haired, had been with him
constantly? No that was not a dream. She did not hate him, else she had
not prayed, and words of thanksgiving were going up to Golden Hair's
God, when a footstep in the hall announced the approach of some one.
Alice, perhaps, and Hugh lay very still, with half-shut eyes, until
Muggins, instead of Alice, appeared.

He was asleep, she said, as, standing on tiptoe, she scanned his face.
He was asleep, and in her own dialect Muggins talked to herself about
him as he lay there so still.