“Yes, I am all unstrung. Why couldn’t you have let him come in and talk awhile? It would have been the best way to get me quieted down. But no; you must always have your own way Don’t twitch me, my dear; I’d rather undress myself. You pretend to be very careful of me. I wonder if you really care for me.” “Oh, mother, you are all I have in the world!” Mrs. Vervain began to whimper. “You talk as if I were any better off. Have I anybody besides you? And I have lost so many.” “Don’t think of those things now, mother.” Mrs. Vervain tenderly kissed the young girl. “You are good to your mother. Don Ippolito was right; no one ever saw you offer me disrespect or unkindness. There, there! Don’t cry, my darling. I think I _had_ better lie down, and I’ll let you undress me.” She suffered herself to be helped into bed, and Florida went softly about the room, putting it in order, and drawing the curtains closer to keep out the near dawn. Her mother talked a little while, and presently fell from incoherence to silence, and so to sleep. Florida looked hesitatingly at her for a moment, and then set her candle on the floor and sank wearily into an arm-chair beside the bed. Her hands fell into her lap; her head drooped sadly forward; the light flung the shadow of her face grotesquely exaggerated and foreshortened upon the ceiling. By and by a bird piped in the garden; the shriek of a swallow made itself heard from a distance; the vernal day was beginning to stir from the light, brief drowse of the vernal night. A crown of angry red formed upon the candle wick, which toppled over in the socket and guttered out with a sharp hiss. Florida started from her chair. A streak of sunshine pierced shutter and curtain. Her mother was supporting herself on one elbow in the bed, and looking at her as if she had just called to her. “Mother, did you speak?” asked the girl. Mrs. Vervain turned her face away; she sighed deeply, stretched her thin hands on the pillow, and seemed to be sinking, sinking down through the bed. She ceased to breathe and lay in a dead faint. Florida felt rather than saw it all. She did not cry out nor call for help. She brought water and cologne, and bathed her mother’s face, and then chafed her hands. Mrs. Vervain slowly revived; she opened her eyes, then closed them; she did not speak, but after a while she began to fetch her breath with the long and even respirations of sleep. Florida noiselessly opened the door, and met the servant with a tray of coffee. She put her finger to her lip, and motioned her not to enter, asking in a whisper: “What time is it, Nina? I forgot to wind my watch.” “It’s nine o’clock, signorina; and I thought you would be tired this morning, and would like your coffee in bed. Oh, misericordia!” cried the girl, still in whisper, with a glance through the doorway, “you haven’t been in bed at all!” “My mother doesn’t seem well. I sat down beside her, and fell asleep in my chair without knowing it.”