Josèphe, nevertheless, grew rapidly worse. In the evening the fever was doubly hot upon her. One after another, she spoke of sister Francine, of Michael, of the cherry-tree in blossom, and of her good friend Monsieur Gabriel. At one moment she fancied that she heard the last-named; she called him; she wished to know if he had brought her the promised presents. At another time, the scene in the ravine appeared to be vividly in her recollection; she cried out that Monsieur Gabriel was dead; and she heard the earth grating over him in the pit. The Surgeon came to see her repeatedly, and multiplied his prescriptions, without power to arrest the onward march of the disease. That night was an awful one for the hapless mother; she kept her child clasped in her arms, the little one's mind wandering more and more. At sunrise the turbulent delirium was over, to give place to the torpor that precedes death. At length, towards the middle of the day, Josèphe opened her eyes, and uttered one sigh--it was the last. The blow had been so decidedly expected, that the despair of Ropars and of Geneviève could scarcely be violent. The bitterness of their loss had, so to say, preceded it; both had tasted it, drop by drop, during the protracted agony. And yet the mother's calmness had in it a something haggard, that would have startled a looker-on less troubled than Mathieu himself. Bent upon rendering the last offices to her daughter, she was long occupied in combing out her beautiful black hair; she dressed the body in her best clothes, and laid it out with the hands crossed over the breast, as Josèphe had been used to carry them when asleep. All this was done slowly, tranquilly, with a sort of complacency even, and often intermingled with kisses. It was but at intervals that a tear trickled over her cheeks, that were marbled with glowing spots; it was but a slight trembling that shook the hand, as it performed its sorrowful duty. At length, when she who had brought this child into the world, and who had nourished it with her milk and with her affection, had herself sewed it up in its shroud, she went to the window, broke the stalk of a gilly-flower--the only one that the sea-winds had spared--pulled off its leaves, and scattered them over the winding sheet.