Her voice trailed unintelligibly to silence again. She was not, however, asleep. Her eyes were open. A grateful numbness had begun to creep over her, a pleasing semi-insensibility. She no longer felt the pain and cramps of her stomach, even the hunger was ceasing to bite. * * * * * "These stuffed artichokes are delicious, Mrs. Gerard, murmured young Lambert, wiping his lips with a corner of his napkin. "Pardon me for mentioning it, but your dinner must be my excuse." "And this asparagus--since Mr. Lambert has set the bad example," observed Mrs. Cedarquist, "so delicate, such an exquisite flavor. How _do_ you manage?" "We get all our asparagus from the southern part of the State, from one particular ranch," explained Mrs. Gerard. "We order it by wire and get it only twenty hours after cutting. My husband sees to it that it is put on a special train. It stops at this ranch just to take on our asparagus. Extravagant, isn't it, but I simply can not eat asparagus that has been cut more than a day." "Nor I," exclaimed Julian Lambert, who posed as an epicure. "I can tell to an hour just how long asparagus has been picked." "Fancy eating ordinary market asparagus," said Mrs. Gerard, "that has been fingered by Heaven knows how many hands." * * * * * "Mammy, mammy, wake up," cried Hilda, trying to push open Mrs. Hooven's eyelids, at last closed. "Mammy, don't. You're just trying to frighten me." Feebly Hilda shook her by the shoulder. At last Mrs. Hooven's lips stirred. Putting her head down, Hilda distinguished the whispered words: "I'm sick. Go to schleep.... Sick.... Noddings to eat." * * * * * The dessert was a wonderful preparation of alternate layers of biscuit, glacés, ice cream, and candied chestnuts. "Delicious, is it not?" observed Julian Lambert, partly to himself, partly to Miss Cedarquist. "This _Moscovite fouetté_--upon my word, I have never tasted its equal." "And you should know, shouldn't you?" returned the young lady. * * * * * "Mammy, mammy, wake up," cried Hilda. "Don't sleep so. I'm frightened." Repeatedly she shook her; repeatedly she tried to raise the inert eyelids with the point of her finger. But her mother no longer stirred. The gaunt, lean body, with its bony face and sunken eye-sockets, lay back, prone upon the ground, the feet upturned and showing the ragged, worn soles of the shoes, the forehead and gray hair beaded with fog, the poor, faded bonnet awry, the poor, faded dress soiled and torn.