It was the dawning of a new life for Margery, this feeling, that Mr. Beresford, the proudest man in Merrivale, found delight in her society and loved to linger at her side. It made everything else so easy, and her life was not one of perfect rest, for Queenie did not improve as the days went on, and to soothe, and quiet, and minister to her was not an easy matter. She could _not_ sleep, and the physician who attended her was beginning to fear for her reason, when she one day said to Margery, “Where is your mother? Why has she never been to see me? Doesn’t she care for me any more?” “She cares very much,” Margery replied, “and she has been here several times to ask for you, but as you would not see your cousins or grandmother, she did not suppose you would see her. Will you see my mother?” “Yes, send for her,” was Queenie’s answer, and Pierre was dispatched to Mrs. La Rue, with the message that Miss Hetherton was anxious to see her. And so Mrs. La Rue went to Hetherton Place, and up to the room where Queenie sat in her easy-chair, with her face so pale and pinched, and her eyes so large and bright, that the impulsive Frenchwoman uttered a cry of alarm, and going to her, threw her arms around her, and cried, “Oh, Queenie, my child, that I should find you so changed.” “Yes, Christine,” Queenie replied, freeing herself from the stifling embrace, “I suppose I am changed. I feel it myself, and believe I shall die if I do not sleep. I have not slept a good sleep since I heard Phil was dead, and I have sent for you to hold me in your arms, just as you must have done when I was a baby, after mother died. Sing me the old lullabies you used to sing me then, and maybe I shall sleep. I feel as if I should—there is such a heaviness about my lids and pressure on my brain. Take me, Christine. Play I am a baby again. I can’t be very heavy now,” and she smiled a faint, shadowy smile, as she put up her arms to the woman who took her up so gladly and covered the wan face with kisses and tears, while she murmured words of pity and endearment. “There, that will do—it wearies me,” Queenie said, and she laid her tired head upon Christine’s shoulder and closed her heavy eyelids. “Rock me to sleep, Christine, as you did at _Chateau des Fleurs_,” she whispered, faintly, and, sitting down in the chair, Christine rocked the poor little girl, and sang to her, in a low, sad voice, a lullaby of France, such as she used to sing when, as now, the dark curly head was pillowed on her breast. Attracted by the sound, Margery stole softly to the door and looked in, but Christine motioned her away and went on with her song of “Mother Mary, guard my child,” until nature, which had resisted every exertion and every drug, however powerful, gradually began to yield—the head pressed more heavily, the rigid nerves softened, a slight moisture showed itself under the hair upon the forehead, and the eyes, which had been so wild and bright, were closed in slumber.