“I have brought a close carriage, and hope to persuade you to drive a little while this afternoon. I will anxiously await your reply in the garden. Yours, S——.” “Well?” questioned Clara, a little impatiently, for Assunta’s face was very grave. “Dear Clara,” she replied, “I have no right to advise you, and I certainly shall not question the propriety of anything you do. I was only thinking whether I had not better tell you that I see a change in your brother this afternoon, and I fear it is for the worse. I am longing for the doctor’s visit.” “Do you really think he is worse?” exclaimed Clara. “He looks to me just the same. But perhaps I had better not go out. I had a little headache, and thought a drive might do me good. But, poor Severn! of course I ought not to leave him.” “You must not be influenced by what I say,” said Assunta. “I may be entirely mistaken, and so I should not alarm you. God knows, I hope it may be so!” “Then you think I might go for an hour or two, just to get a breath of air,” said Mrs. Grey. “Mr. Sinclair will certainly think I have found it necessary to call a papal consistory, if I keep him much longer on the promenade.” Poor Assunta, worn out with her two weeks of watching and anxiety, looked for a moment with a sort of incredulous wonder at the incarnation of unconscious selfishness before her. For one moment she looked “upon this picture and on that”—the noble, devoted brother, sick unto death; and that man, the acquaintance of a few days, now walking impatiently up and down the orange avenue. The flush of indignation changed her pale cheeks to scarlet, and an almost pharisaical thanksgiving to God that she was not like _some_ women swept across her heart, while a most unwonted sarcasm trembled on her lips. She instantly checked the unworthy feeling and its expression; but she was so unstrung by care and fatigue that she could not so easily control her emotion, and, before the object of unusual indignation had time to wonder at the delay of her reply, she had thrown herself upon the sofa, and was sobbing violently. Mrs. Grey was really alarmed, so much so that she dropped both card and flowers upon the floor, and forgot entirely her waiting cavalier, as she knelt beside the excited girl, and put her arms about her. “Assunta dear, what is the matter? Are you ill? Oh! what have I done?” she exclaimed. “My poor guardian—my dear, kind friend, he is dying! May God have mercy on him and on me!” were the words that escaped Assunta’s lips between the sobs. A shudder passed through Mrs. Grey at this unexpected putting into words of the one thought she had so carefully kept from her mind; and her own tears began to flow. Just at this moment the physician’s step sounded in the hall, and she went hastily to summon him. He took in the whole scene at a glance, and, seating himself at once upon the sofa beside Assunta, he put his hand gently and soothingly upon her head, as a father might have done.