When near the fireplace it stood still, enabling the mistress of the dwelling to recognize the features of Say, her friend and now fully recovered patient.
But how different was Say's appearance from what it was when Shotaye a few days ago saw her last?
How changed,--how thin and wan her cheeks, how sunken her eyes, how sallow and sickly her complexion! Her face seemed to bear the seal of approaching death, for the eyes stared expressionless, the mouth twitched without speaking.

But one thought seized Shotaye, that her friend must be ill, very, very ill,--that the old disease had returned in full force and had clutched her anew with perhaps irresistible power.

Anxiously she rose to her feet, and scanned the face of the invalid.
"What ails you, my sister," she inquired tenderly.

"Has disease come on you again?
Speak, sa uishe, speak to me that I may know." Her visitor only shook her head and glanced about as if seeking a place to rest herself.

The medicine-woman gathered hurriedly a few robes, folded them so as to make a cushion near the hearth, and then gently urged Say to sit down on this soft and easy seat.