ss he might, of the impending sorrow. Regina,
who had been weeping bitterly, and would speak to no one, brought Norma
and the doctor two smoking hot cups of bouillon on a tray.

"And you mustn't get tired, Mrs. Sheridan," one of the nurses, herself
healthily odorous of a beef and apple-pie dinner, said kindly to Norma,
at about seven o'clock. "There'll be coffee and sandwiches all night.
This is a part of our lives, you know, and we get used to it, but it's
hard for those not accustomed to it."

At about nine o'clock in the evening Chris came back. Alice had received
the news bravely, he said; there had been no hysteria and she kept
admirable control of herself, and he had left her ready for sleep. But
it had hit her very hard. Miss Slater had promised him that she would
put a sleeping powder into Alice's regular ten o'clock glass of hot
milk, and let him know when she was safely off.

"She is very thankful that you are here, she was uneasy every instant
that I stayed away!" he said softly to Norma, and Norma nodded her
approval. Long before eleven o'clock they had the report that Alice was
sleeping soundly under the combined effect of the powder and Miss
Slater's repeated and earnest assurance that there was no immediate
danger as regarded her mother.

Chris and Norma and the doctor and two of the nurses went down to the
dining-room, and had sandwiches and coffee, and talked long and sadly of
the briefness and mutability of mortal life. When they went upstairs
again the doctor stretched out for some rest, on the sitting-room couch,
and Norma went to her own old room, and got into her comfortable, thick
padded wrapper and warm slippers. The night was still wet and stormy,
and had turned cold. Hail rattled on the window sills.

Then she crept into the sick-room, and joined the nurses in their
unrelenting vigil. Mrs. Melrose was still lying back, her eyes
half-open, her face darkly flushed, her lips moving in an incoherent
mutter. Now and then they caught the syllables of Norma's name, and once
she said "Kate!" so sharply that everyone in the sick chamber started.

Norma, leaning back in a great chair by the bed, mused and pondered as
the slow hours went by. The softened lights touched the nurses' crisp
aprons, the fire was out now, and only the two softly palpitating disks
from the shaded lamps dimly illumined the room.

Annie and Theodore and Alice had all been born in this very room, Norma
thought. She imagined