“Good bye, now, Richard, good bye.  My brain begins to buzz, my hand to tremble.  The lines all run together, and I am most as blind as you.  God bless you, Mr. Richard; bless you any way, but a heap more if you give Miggie up.  May be He’ll give you back your sight to pay for Miggie.  I should rather have it than a wife who did not love me; and I’ll tease Him till He’ll let me bring it to you some day.

“Good bye, again, good bye.

“Nina Arthur Bernard.”

The night was nearly worn away ere the letter was finished; and Nina’s eyes flashed with unwonted fire as laughing aloud at the Arthur added to her name, she laid it away beneath her pillow and then tried herself to sleep.  But this last was impossible, and when the morning broke she was so much worse that the old nurse trembled lest her master should censure her severely for having yielded to her young mistress’s whim.  Mild and gentle as he seemed, Arthur could, if necessary, be very stern, and knowing this, old Hannah concluded at last that if Nina did not betray herself she would not, and when Arthur came, expressing his surprise at the change, and asking for its cause, she told glibly “how restless and onquiet Miss Nina done been flirtin’ round till the blood all got in her head and she was dreadful.”

“You should have called me,” Arthur said, sitting down by Nina, whose feverish hands he clasped, while he asked, “Is my little girl’s head very bad this morning?”

Nina merely nodded, for she really was too weak to talk, and Arthur watched her uneasily, wondering why it was that her eyes were fixed so constantly upon the door, as if expecting some one.  When breakfast was announced she insisted that both he and Edith should leave her, and, the moment they were gone, she asked for Victor, who came at once, half guessing why he was sent for.

“Under my pillow,” she whispered, as he bent over her, and in an instant the letter, of whose existence neither Arthur nor Edith suspected, was safe in Victor’s pocket.

Nina had accomplished her object, and she became unusually quiet.  Richard would get the letter—­Richard would do right, she knew, and the conviction brought to her a deep peace, which nothing ever after disturbed.  She did not speak of him again, and her last days were thus pleasanter to Edith, who, from the sweet companionship held with her gentle sister, learned in part what Nina Bernard was, ere the darkness of which she had written to Richard crept into her brain.  Fair and beautiful as the white pond lily, she faded rapidly, until Arthur carried her no longer to the window, holding her in his arms while she looked out upon the yard and garden where she used to play—­but she lay all day upon her bed holding Edith’s hands, and talking to her of that past still so dim and vague to the latter.  Marie, too, often joined them, repeating to Edith many incidents of interest connected with both her parents, but speaking most of the queenly Petrea, whom Edith so strongly resembled.  Nina, too, remembered her well, and Edith was never weary of hearing her tell of the “beautiful new mamma,” who kissed her so tenderly that night when she first came home, calling her la petite enfant, and placing in her arms a darling little sister, with eyes just like the stars!