Mr. Jocelyn and the physician soon appeared, and after a brief examination the latter called Mr. Jocelyn aside and said, “Her pulse indicates that she may die at any hour.  There is no use in trying to do anything, for the end has come.  It has probably been hastened by lack of proper food, but it’s too late now to give much, for there is no power of assimilation.”

“You had better tell the poor girl the truth, then,” said Mr. Jocelyn.

Clara was called, and heard the verdict with a short, convulsive sob, then was her weary, quiet self again, “I feared it was so,” was all she said.  She now became aware that Mildred stood beside her with an encircling and sustaining arm.  “Don’t,” she whispered; “don’t be too kind or I’ll break down utterly, and I don’t want to before mother.  She don’t know—­she never will believe she can die, and I don’t want her to know.  I’ll have time enough to cry after she’s gone.”

“I feel I must stay vith yer to-night,” warm-hearted Mrs. Wheaton began; “and if Miss Jocelyn vill look hafter my children I vill.”

“No, Mrs. Wheaton,” said Mildred decidedly, “I’m going to stay.  You ought to be with your children.  Don’t tell Belle, papa, and take the poor child home.  Clara and I can now do all that can be done.  Please don’t say anything against it, for I know I’m right,” she pleaded earnestly in answer to her father’s look of remonstrance.

“Very well, then, I’ll return and stay with you,” he said.

The physician’s eyes dwelt on Mildred’s pale face in strong admiration as he gave her a few directions.  “That’s right, Millie, make her well for mercy’s sake or I’ll have the horrors,” Belle whispered as she kissed her sister good-night.

Soon Clara and Mildred were alone watching the gasping, fitful sleeper.  “After all that’s been done—­for me—­to-night I’ll—­surely get well,” she had murmured, and she closed her eyes without an apparent doubt of recovery.

Mildred furtively expiorea the now dimly lighted room.  “Merciful Heaven,” she sighed, “shall we ever come to this?” Clara’s eyes were fixed on her mother’s face with pathetic intensity, watching the glimmer of that mysterious thing we call life, that flickered more and more faintly.  The difference between the wasted form, with its feeble animation, and what it must soon become would seem slight, but to the daughter it would be wide indeed.  Love could still answer love, even though it was by a sign, a glance, a whisper only; but when to the poor girl it would be said of her mother, “She’s gone,” dim and fading as the presence had been, manifested chiefly by the burdens it imposed, its absence would bring the depths of desolation and sorrow.

Going the poor creature evidently was, and whither?  The child she was leaving knew little of what was bright and pleasant in this world, and nothing of the next.  “Miss Jocelyn,” she began hesitatingly.

“Don’t call me Miss Jocelyn; I’m a working-girl like yourself.”