"I hadn't the heart to speak another word to such a man. I crept up again to the young ladies' chamber, and I knelt down by Madam Claudia, and told her she must make ready for the worst. She shivered all over, and then, scarce opening her white lips, she said, 'Is it all over?' I said, 'They think not quite; but Sir Edward is bringing him hither.' When she heard that, she rose and glided down the stairs to the hall, Madam Amata following her, and I likewise. Even Madam Sophia was a trifle touched, I think, for she said a bad word, as those French ladies do when they are astonished; but Madam Amata was very white and crying, for if Mr. Camillus had really been her brother born, I don't think she could have loved him much better than she did. "Just as Madam Claudia reached the hall, Sir Edward came in, and the other gentleman, bearing poor Mr. Camillus covered with blood. There was a marble couch in the hall, with silken cushions; they laid him down there, and he just spoke twice. First he said to Sir Edward, 'Tell my mother gently, and take care of my Claude.' And then when Madam Claudia came and knelt by him, he said, '_Dieu vous garde, mamie_!' Then he laid his head back and died. But when he died, Madam Claudia threw her arms about him, and laid her head down on his breast in spite of the blood: and then suddenly springing to her feet, she flung up her arms wildly in a way that sent a shudder through me, and the next minute she would have fallen on the ground if Sir Edward had not caught her first. 'Let us carry her up, Patient, to her own chamber, poor soul!' he saith. So we took her up, I and he, and I laid her quiet on her bed. Madam Amata followed us, and, poor young maid! it was pitiful to see her. She had never been taught to do more than make fancy-work and play the violin and such, and now she wanted to nurse her sister, and did not know how to set about it. 'Do tell me, _ma bonne_, what I can do for Claude?--my poor Claude!' she kept saying to me. 'Twas a long while ere Madam Claudia came round, and when she did, she wept and mourned every minute of the day for four days. I don't think she ever quite loved anything again as she had loved him." Celia could hardly associate the idea of such mourning as this with her cold, fashionable, impassive step-mother.