I sat looking at the hour-glass, counting every gliding sand, till each little, almost invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless steps to turn the glass. With a shriek that might have arrested the departing spirit, I sprang forward and fell senseless on the floor. I remember nothing that passed during the day. I was told afterwards, that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring voices in the next room, and there was a light there more dim and earthly than the pale splendor that enveloped me. I leaned forward on my elbow and looked beyond the open door. The plain white curtains of the bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering. A form reclined on the bed, but the face was _all covered_, though it was a midsummer's night. As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept. Sustained by unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.