knelt
down, and putting one arm under the pillow elevated it slightly, while
she held the glass to the girl's lips, Beryl attempted to push it aside.

"Take it for me, dear child; it will make you sleep, and ease your
pain."

The beautiful eyes regarded her wistfully, then wandered to the face of
the lawyer and rested, spellbound.

"Here, swallow this. It is not bad to take."

Mrs. Singleton patted her cheek and again essayed to administer the
draught, but without success.

"Let me try."

Mr. Dunbar took the glass, but as he bent down, the girl began to
shiver as though smitten with a mortal chill. She writhed away, put out
her shuddering hands to ward it off; and starting up, her eyes filled
with a look of indescribable horror and loathing, as she cried out:

"Ricordo! Oh, mother--it is Ricordo! I see, it! Father--it was my Pegli
handkerchief!--with the fuchsias you drew! Father--ask Christ to pity
me!"

She sank back quivering with dread, pitiable to contemplate; but after
a few moments her hands sought each other, and her trembling lips moved
evidently in prayer, though the petition was inaudible. Mrs. Singleton
sponged her forehead with iced water, and by degrees the convulsive
shivering became less violent. The wise nurse began in a subdued tone
to sing slowly, "Nearer my God to Thee," and after a little while, the
sufferer grew still, the heavy lids lifted once or twice, then closed,
and the laboring brain seized on some new vision in the world of
fevered dreams.

Mrs. Singleton took the medicine from the attorney, and put it aside.

"Sleep is her best physic. When these nervous shivers come on, I find a
hymn chanted, soothes her as it does one of my babies. Poor child! she
makes my heart ache so sometimes, that I want to scream the pain away.
How people with any human nature left in them, can look at her and
listen to her pitiful cries to her dead father, and her dying mother,
and her far-off God, and then believe that her poor beautiful hands
could shed blood, passes my comprehension; and all such ought to go on
four feet, and browse like other brutes. I am poor, but I vow before
the Lord, that I would not stand in your shoes, Mr. Dunbar, for all the
gold in the Government vaults, and all the diamonds in Brazil."

Tears were dripping on the costly furs about Leo's neck, as she moved
closer to the attorney, and linked her arm in his:

"Mr. Dunbar, we will detain my uncle no longer. Mrs. Singleton