"No. Why should I care? He is nothing to me! If you choose to take a heartless flirt for your husband, and run the risk of having him desert you for some other fair face, as he deserted me for you, why, you have my consent!" Jewel answered, proudly, and with such well-acted carelessness that Flower told herself that her lover was right. Jewel would soon forget her disappointment. She hung around her sister several moments, but Jewel took no notice, and at length Flower asked, timidly: "Where is mamma?" "She has gone over to Mammy Maria's house," Jewel replied, composedly. "Why did she go?" "Sam came to tell her that his wife had had some sort of a stroke and was dying. She kept calling for mamma, saying that she had a secret to tell her before she died, so she went at once," Jewel answered, speaking as indifferently as if the dying woman had been a stranger, instead of the devoted nurse whose ample breast had pillowed her childish years with tenderer care than she had ever received from her half-demented mother. But Flower began to sob piteously for her poor old mammy, begging Jewel to go with her to her bedside. "I would not go for a kingdom! I'm afraid of a dying person. I never saw any one die in my life. And you can not go, either, for mamma said you must stay here with me!" Jewel answered, selfishly. CHAPTER V. Flower stayed up until midnight waiting for her mother's return and for news of old Maria, but at last she succumbed to anxiety and weariness, and fell asleep on the sofa. The house-maid found her here presently and carried her off to bed. The first thing she heard next morning was that old Maria had died at the turn of the night, and that her mother had come home soon after and retired to her room, giving orders that she was not to be disturbed in the morning. Pretty Flower shed some bitter tears over the death of the dearly loved old nurse, then she began to long to comfort her mother in her sorrow. "Poor dear, she must have loved Mammy Maria very much. I will just peep in and see if she is sleeping soundly," she thought, and went on tiptoe to her mother's door. Mrs. Fielding was not in bed at all. She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, and when Flower came gliding in, her mother's aspect struck her with such fear and horror that she could not repress a cry of distress. For a moment it appeared to her that a stranger was sitting there in her mother's chair. At a first glance Mrs. Fielding looked like an old woman. Her handsome face was drawn, haggard, and gray, and the long tresses of hair that fell round her shoulders had turned to snowy-white since yesterday. The only attribute of youth remaining was in her large, brilliant dark eyes that burned with an unnatural and feverish glitter, betokening a terrible inward excitement. Her lips were working nervously, and low, incoherent words issued from them like the ravings of a lunatic.