Her lips moved, and Nellie stopped to catch the faint murmur that came from them. “Hush--sh! don’t wake her. It took so long to get her to sleep--and sleep is such a blessing.” “Sleep is such a blessing!” These were the last words of Marguerite Helmstedt. Saying them, her eyes turned with unutterable love upon the little form sleeping beside her, and her hand essayed again its soothing part, but that dying hand was too feeble, and it slipped, powerless, from its work. Margaret, at the same moment, opened her eyes, with that distressed, perplexed expression wherewith we first awake after a great sorrow. But in an instant all was remembered. Her mother dying since yesterday! Simultaneously with this anguish of recovered memory came that strange power of self-control, with which this young creature was so greatly endowed. “How are you, sweet mother?” she asked, calmly. The lips of the dying woman fluttered and faintly smiled, but no audible sound issued thence. Her powers of speech had failed. Margaret grew deadly pale. “Do not be alarmed, and do not worry her with questions. She is very much exhausted. The doctor will give her a cordial presently,” said the pitying Nellie, seeking to conceal the terrible truth. But had she looked for an instant into that pale, resolute face she would not have feared any unseemly outburst of sorrow on the part of that young girl. Nellie, assisted by Margaret, placed Mrs. Helmstedt in an easier position and arranged the bed drapery. Then, while old Mrs. Compton and Dr. Hartley paid a visit to the room, she took Margaret downstairs and constrained her to take a cup of coffee, that she might be able to attend upon her mother through the day, Nellie said. And upon this adjuration, Margaret forced herself to take some refreshment. After that the young girl resumed her watch, and never again left her dying mother. As yesterday passed, so passed this day, except that Mrs. Helmstedt was sinking faster. As yesterday, so to-day, she lay quietly, in a gentle, murmuring delirium, not one word of which was audible, but which flowed on in a continuous stream of inarticulate music. Her life waned with the day. Late in the afternoon, during a lucid interval, she signed her wish that all might depart from the room and leave her alone with her child. And they went. And as upon the night preceding, so upon this afternoon, at a sign from Mrs. Helmstedt, Margaret lay down beside her, as if consenting to take some rest. At another sign she drew her mother’s powerless hand over her own shoulder. And then, with a sigh of content, Mrs. Helmstedt closed her eyes as if to sleep. The day was dying. The sun was sinking low on the horizon. In the parlor below the friends of the family were watching its slow but sure descent, and mentally comparing it with the steady decline of life in one above, and mournfully wondering whether she could live to see another sunrise.