a great deal better, and would not have
complained of the fatigue of standing so long;
which Mrs. Gray did all day long. Her
cold and her grief and her weariness made
her the most painful companion; especially
to a devoted daughter. She wept day and
night, and coughed in the intervals. She
did not eat, and answered every one who
pressed any kind of food on her reproachfully,
as if they had insulted her. She slept
very little, and denied even that little. She
was always languid, and excess of crushed
hopes and unrequited affection stimulated
her into a fever.

The marriage-day drew nearer. The
preparations, plentifully interspersed with Mrs.
Gray's sighs, and damped by her tears,
savoured less of a wedding than of a funeral,
at which Mrs. Gray was chief mourner. The
father, on the contrary—to whom Isabel was
the only bright spot in life, and who would
lose all in losing her—was the gayest of the
party. Isabel herself, divided between her
lover and her parents, was half distracted
with her conflicting feelings, and often wished
she had never seen Charles Houghton at all.
She told him so once, to his great dismay,
after a scene of hysterics and fainting-fits
performed by her mother.

It wanted only a week now to the marriage,
when Herbert Gray came down to breakfast
alone.

"Where is mamma?" asked Isabel.

"She is not well, my dear, and will have
breakfast in bed."

"Poor mamma! how long her cold has
continued. What can be done for her?"

"We must send for Doctor Melville, if she
does not get better soon. I am quite uneasy
about her, and have been so for some time. But
she did not wish a physician to be sent for."

"There is no danger?" asked Isabel,
anxiously.

Her father did not answer for a moment;
then he said, gravely; "She was never
strong, and I find her much weakened by her
cough."

By this time breakfast was ready, and
Isabel prepared to take up her mother's
tray. She looked at her father lovingly
when she passed him, and turned back at
the door and smiled. Then she softly
ascended the stairs. A fearful fit of coughing
seemed to have been suddenly arrested as
she entered her mother's room. She placed
the tray gently on the dressing-table.

There was a faint moan; a moan which
caused Isabel an agony of terror. On tearing
back the curtains, she beheld her mother
lying like a corpse—the bed-clothes
saturated with blood. At first she thought of
murder, and looked wildly round the room
expecting to see some one again clutch at
that sacred life; but Mrs. Gray said faintly,
"I have only broken a blood-vessel, my love;
send for your father." A new nature seemed
to be roused in Isabel. Agitated and frightened
as she was, a womanly self-possession
seemed to give her double power, both of act
and vision, and to bury for ever all the child
in her heart. She forgot herself. She thought
only of her mother, and what would be good
for her. As with all strong natures,
sympathy took at once the form of help rather
than of pity. She rang the bell and called
the maid. "Go down and tell my father
he is wanted here," she said quietly. "Mamma
is very ill. Make haste and tell my
father; but do not frighten him."

She went back to her mother's room,
quietly and steadily, without a sign of terror
or bewilderment. She washed the blood
from her face, gently; and, without raising
her head, she drew off the crimsoned cap. Not
to shock her father by the suddenness of all
the ghastly evidences of danger, perhaps of
death, she threw clean linen over the bed,
and placed wet towels on her mother's breast.
Then, as her father entered, she drew back
the curtains, and opened the window, saying
softly, "Do not speak loud, dear papa. She
has broken a blood-vessel."

Herbert Gray, from whom his daughter
had inherited all her self-command, saw at a
glance that everything was already done
which could be done without professional
advice; and, giving his wife's pale cheek a
gentle kiss, he left the room, saying simply,
"God bless you!" and in less time than
many a younger and more active man could
have done it was at Doctor Melville's door.

All this self-possession seemed to Mrs.
Gray only intense heartlessness; and she
lay there brooding over the indifference of
her husband and child with such bitterness,
that at last she burst into a fit of hysterical
tears, and threw herself into such agitation,
that she brought back the bleeding from the
ruptured vessel to a more alarming extent
than before. She would have been more
comforted, ten thousand times, if they had both
fallen to weeping and wailing; and had
rendered themselves useless by indulgence in
grief. Love with her meant pity and caresses.

"Oh, child!" gasped Mrs. Gray, "how
little you love me!"

Isabel said nothing for a moment. She
kissed her mother's hand; and with
difficulty repressed her tears. For it was a
terrible accusation, and almost destroyed her
calmness. But, fearing that any exhibition
of emotion would excite and harm her
mother, she pressed back the tears into her
inmost heart, and only said, "Dearest mother,
you know I love you more than my life!"

But Mrs. Gray was resolved to see in all
this calmness, only apathy. She loosened
her daughter's hand pettishly, and sobbed
afresh. If Isabel had wept a sea of tears, and
had run the risk of killing her with agitation,
she would have been better pleased than
now. Isabel thought her mind was rather
affected, and looked anxiously for her father.

"Don't stay with me, Isabel! Go—go—