''Don''t be frightened,'' I would always answer. ''Oh, don''t be frightened.''—And at that moment, the dream would slip from me and I would wake. I would wake in a kind of dread, to think that, like Nurse Bacon, I might have said the words aloud—or sighed, or quivered. And then I would lie and be filled with a terrible shame. For I hated her! I hated her!—and yet I knew that, every time, I secretly wished that the dream had gone on to its end.
I began to be afraid I would rise in my sleep. Say I tried to kiss Mrs Price, or Betty? But if I tried to stay awake, then I grew bewildered. I imagined fearful things. Those nights were queer nights. For though the heat made us all grow stupid, it also now and then sent ladies—even quiet, obedient ladies—into fits. You caught the commotion of it from your bed: the shrieking, the ringing of bells, the pounding of running feet. It broke into the hot and silent night, like a clap of thunder; and though you knew, each time, what it was, still the sounds came so strangely—and sometimes one lady would set off another; and then you would lie and wonder whether that mightn''t set off you, and you would seem to feel the fit gathering inside you, you would start to sweat, perhaps to twitch—oh, those were dreadful nights! Betty might moan. Mrs Price would start to weep. Nurse Bacon would rise: ''Hush! Hush!'' she''d say. She would open the door, lean out and listen. Then the shrieking would stop, the footsteps begin to fade. ''That''s got her,'' she''d say. ''Now, will they pad her, I wonder, or plunge her?''—and at that word, plunge,