WAKING AND WATCHING. Burning with thirst and wild with fever, She tossed and moaned on her couch of pain; With an aching heart he must go and leave her; Never shall they two meet again! Never? Oh, yes, where the stars are burning O'er his path to Heaven with a golden glow, His soul turns back with its human yearning To watch her anguish and soothe her woe. When Mrs. Chester awoke from her slumber, which had been one wild and harrowing dream, she inquired of the children, who were early to her bed, if their father had not come back, and if there was yet no tidings from the Mayor's office. They answered that he had but just left the house, and that he had been with her nearly an hour as she slept. She smiled gently, and closing her heavy eyes, turned her head upon the pillow, moaning with the pain this slight motion gave. Mary went to the little supper table which she had spread in anticipation of Mr. Chester's return, and came back with a bowl of warm tea in her hand. "If you can only drink a little of this ma'am," she said, stirring the tea with a bright silver teaspoon, the last they had left of a full set, "it always does your head so much good!" Mrs. Chester rose upon her elbow and attempted to take the tea, but her head was dizzy, and after the first spoonful she turned away in disgust. "I cannot drink it. Oh, for a glass of cold, cold water!" Mary ran into the next room and came back with some water. But it tasted tepid to the poor invalid, and she only bathed her parched mouth with it. "You are ill, you are very ill, ma'am," said Mary; "this does not seem like nothing but a slight headache. May I run for a doctor?" "We have no money to pay doctors with, my child," said the poor invalid, clasping her hot fingers together, "now that I am sick, who will earn bread for you all? who will comfort _him_?" "I will do my best, and so will Isabel!" replied Mary, "besides, perhaps--" The child paused and her eyes fell. She was about to say that perhaps the Mayor might not be so very hard on Mr. Chester, after all; but remembering the look and manner of that unhappy man, she could not say this with truth, knowing well, as if it had been told her in words, that her benefactor had no hope. "Perhaps," she added, "something may happen. When it was at the worst with me, you know something happened." "And surely it is at the worst with us now," murmured Mrs. Chester, meekly folding her hands, "no, not the worst," she added, with a wild start, "for I am not a widow yet." God help the poor woman. She was a widow, even then.