, and habitually perturbed, she moved in a continual
flutter of speech--a creature to be reckoned with from the little, flat,
round curls upon her temples, which looked as if each separate hair was
held in place by a particular wire, to the sweep of her black velvet
train, which surged at an exaggerated length behind her feet. Her face
was like an old and tattered comic mask which, though it has been flung
aside as no longer provocative of pleasant mirth, still carries upon its
cheeks and eyebrows the smears of the rouge pot and the pencil.

"My dear Angela," she now asked in her excited tones, "have you really
been walking about again? I lay awake all night fearing that you had
over-taxed your strength yesterday. Mrs. Francis Barnes--you never knew
her of course, but she was a distant cousin of Horace's--died quite
suddenly, without an instant's warning, after having walked rapidly
twice up and down the room. Since then I have always looked upon
movement as a very dangerous thing."

"Well, I could hardly die suddenly under any circumstances," returned
Angela, indifferently. "You've been watching by my death-bed for forty
years."

"Oh, dear sister," pleaded Mrs. Bleeker, whose heart, was as soft as her
bosom.

"It does sound as if you thought we really wanted your things,"
commented Mrs. Payne, opening and shutting her painted fan. "Of
course--if you were to die we should be too heart-broken to care what
you left--but, since we are on the subject, I've always meant to ask you
to leave me the shawl of old rose-point which belonged to mother."

"Rosa, how can you?" remonstrated Mrs. Bleeker, "I am sure I hope Angela
will outlive me many years, but if she doesn't I want everything she has
to go to Laura."

"Well, I'm sure I don't see how Laura could very well wear a rose-point
shawl," persisted Mrs. Payne. "I wouldn't have started the subject for
anything on earth, Angela, but, since you've spoken of it, I only
mention what is in my mind. And now don't say a word, Sophy, for we'll
go back to other matters. In poor Angela's mental state any little
excitement may bring on a relapse."

"A relapse of what?" bluntly enquired honest Mrs. Bleeker.

Mrs. Payne turned upon her a glance of indignant calm.

"Why a relapse of--of her trouble," she responded. "You show a strange
lack of consideration for her condition, but for my part I am perfectly
assured that it needs only some violent shock, such as may result from
a sev