d not the strength to rally.

"It's because she's always worked _so_ hard--I can't help thinking of
it," said Betty, who sat in the outer room, crying (she had been up all
night, but did not dream of taking any rest); "she _never_ stopped. We
all knew it, and yet somehow we didn't half realize it, or try to
prevent it; and it's too late now."

All the Gracias friends were soon assembled at East Angels; even Mrs.
Moore, invalid though she was, made the little journey by water, and was
carried up to the house in an arm-chair by her husband and old Pablo.
Recovering, if not more strength, then at least that renewed command of
speech which often comes back for a time just before the end, Mrs.
Thorne, late in the afternoon, opened her eyes, looked at them all, and
then, after a moment, asked to be left alone with Garda, Margaret, and
Evert Winthrop. Margaret thought that she had spoken Winthrop's name by
mistake.

"She doesn't mean you, I think," she said to him, in a low tone.

"Yes, I mean Mr. Winthrop," murmured Mrs. Thorne, with a faint shadow of
her old decision.

Her Gracias friends softly left the room. Even Dr. Kirby, after a few
whispered words with Winthrop, followed them.

When the door was closed, Mrs. Thorne signified that she wished to take
Margaret's hand. Then, her feeble fingers resting on it, "Garda," she
said, in her husky voice, "Margaret--whom I trust entirely--has
promised--to take charge of you--for a while--after--I am gone. Promise
me--on your side--to obey her--to do as she wishes."

"Do not make her promise that," said Margaret. "I think she loves me;
that will be enough."

Garda, crying bitterly, kissed Margaret, and then sank on her knees
beside the bed, her head against her mother's arm. The sight of her
child's grief did not bring the tears to Mrs. Thorne's eyes--already the
calm that precedes death had taken possession of them; but it did cause
a struggling effort of the poor harassed breath to give forth a sob. She
tried to stroke Garda's hair, but could not. "How can I go--and leave
her?" she whispered, looking piteously at Margaret, and then at
Winthrop, as he stood at the foot of the bed. "She had--no one--but me."
And again came the painful sound in the throat, though the clogged
breast had not the strength to rise.

"If I could only know," she went on, desolately, to Margaret, the slow
turning of the eyes betraying the approach of that lethargy which was
soon to touch the musc