This was the uncomfortable state of matters in the Sirani family in August 1665. Elisabetta herself had been for some time past out of her usual health. But with her ordinary invincible industry, she stuck to her work. With her father disabled by the gout, her sister Barbara also down with fever, and unable to earn anything, it was more than ever necessary that Elisabetta should take the labouring oar. And fortunately a fresh order for a picture from the Empress Eleonora had recently been received. And the young artist, answering her mother's anxious inquiries about a pain, from which she had been suffering, by saying that "the best way not to feel it was not to think of it," bravely set her canvas before her, and bent her mind to the composition of the new picture. CHAPTER II. HER DEATH. Elisabetta, who had been all her life previously in the enjoyment of sound and even robust health, had been feeling more or less unwell ever since the Lent of that year 1665. She suffered from slight pain in the stomach; and though she could with difficulty be got to speak on the subject, her loss of colour and of flesh showed unmistakeably that she was out of health. She was nevertheless as assiduous as ever at her easel; and in the first days of August was just setting to work on the picture ordered, as has been said, for the Empress Eleonora. On the 12th or 13th of that month, the pain from which she suffered became worse. And as Signor Gallerati, the medical man who attended the family, called that day to see her sister Barbara, who was ill with fever, Elisabetta spoke to him about herself. The learned doctor told her that no medicine could be taken for the present, as the sun was in the sign of the Lion; that her pain was caused by a cold; and that she might take a little syrup of vinegar. On the 24th she was able to go with her mother to see the fair. But on the 27th, as she was working in an upper room at her picture, the pain became so violent, that she with difficulty went down stairs to the room where Barbara was ill in bed, and sitting down on the edge of it, said, "Oh! sister, I have so dreadful a pain in my stomach, that I feel as if I were dying!" Barbara seeing the sudden changes in her colour, and contortions of her features, feared that she really was about to die; and hurriedly called their mother, who was in the next room. The mother immediately got her into bed; and a succession of fainting fits, accompanied by profuse cold perspirations followed. A messenger sent in haste to Dr. Gallerati, not finding him at home, brought a Doctor Mattaselani, who was, it appears, one of the leading physicians of the city. This gentleman ordered her purgatives, and ointment for exterior use.