over Amanda in her sleep; this lasted for an hour or two, during which the patient and the young attendant who was so little used to watch, slept peacefully with but the veil of this curtain between them. Then Amanda began to stir. Her sleep was always broken and uncertain; the poor aunty to whom she was so cruel had accustomed her to constant and unfailing attendance--and when she woke and called and saw no one, sudden wrath flamed up in Amanda’s bosom. Gradually the circumstances came back upon her mind, and plucking back the curtain she saw poor Innocent quietly sleeping, her hair falling in the old childish way about her shoulders, and her dark eyelashes resting on her cheek, which looked so pale under them. Amanda did not care for the weary grace and _abandon_ of the girl’s attitude, nor was she at all touched by the thought that Innocent had been occupied in her own service to her last moment of consciousness. Mrs. Frederick, on the contrary, was furious to find herself “left alone” with no obsequious nurse ready to attend to her wants. She shrieked at Innocent to rouse her, and stretching out of bed shook the girl, who started violently, and sprang up trembling and nervous. Amanda’s eyes were blazing, her figure trembling with sudden irritation. “How dare you fall asleep?” she cried, “am I to be left with no one to take care of me? oh, you all want to kill me. Give me my drops, you cruel, wicked, sleepy, lazy, wicked girl! You don’t know how?--oh, you know well enough how to walk about with my husband--how to make love to him. My drops! can’t you understand?--there, in that bottle; you can read, I suppose, though you are a fool. Oh, to leave me to this horrid girl! Oh, to have no one to take care of me! My drops? can’t you hear? I’ll make it heard all over the house. My drops! Oh, you little idiot, can’t you do that much? I always said you was a fool; walk about with another woman’s husband--torment a man with clinging to him--but as for being of use. My drops! Put them in the glass, idiot! Can’t you see I want to go to sleep?”