“How could you be so imprudent, Jack, and she so sick and weak?” “Because I’m a brute, I suppose, and feel sometimes like blurting out things I must not say,” Jack replied, as he tried to quiet Annie, who insisted upon knowing “who and where her mother was.” “Ask Georgie, she may tell you, but I cannot,” Jack answered her at last, and with that reply Annie had to be satisfied. Both Maude and Edna staid by her during the night, forgetful of their own fatigue, and scarcely giving a thought to the brilliant party of the next evening, or the worn, tired faces they would carry to it, provided they went at all, which seemed very doubtful, as the daylight came creeping into the room, and showed them the change in their patient. She was not dying; she might linger for two or three days longer, the physician said, when at sunrise he came, but there was the sign of death upon her face, and she lay perfectly motionless, only speaking occasionally to ask what time it was; if it was to-night the party was to take place, and if Georgie would surely come after it was over. Her absorbing thought was to see Georgie once more, or “sister,” as she still called her, for the idea did not seem to have entered her mind that Georgie was not her sister, even though the kind woman whom she remembered well had not been her mother. Once, as Maude started to leave the bedside for a moment, Annie grasped her hand and said to her: “You won’t go too and leave me; nor you?” turning an appealing glance at Edna, then quickly adding: “Yes, you must, you may; you want to see the party, and you’ll tell how Georgie looked, and bring her back with you.” But neither Maude nor Edna had any heart for gay festivities then; that white face with the stamp of death upon it would be ever present in their minds, and each came simultaneously to the same conclusion. They could not leave Annie, and so a hasty note was written by Maude and dispatched to Madison Square, saying that though Annie was not in immediate danger, neither Miss Overton nor herself could think of leaving her unless their services were absolutely required in New York. Would Georgie see Mrs. Churchill for Miss Overton, and if possible send word to Jersey if she was comfortable, and was willing to be left alone another day. Georgie read this note in her own room, and when she saw that Annie was no worse, an involuntary, “Thank God!” dropped from her lips, while her next remark was, “I knew Jack was more alarmed than he need be,—he always is;” and then she was conscious of a mean feeling of relief that Edna was to be absent that evening. The girl was too beautiful and attractive not to be noticed and admired, while Roy was altogether too much interested in her; and Georgie ground her teeth together as she recalled certain looks she had seen him give to “that hypocrite.”