the humorous passages, and whimpering at the pathetic.  Rosa cheated time of heaviness by unceasing demands upon her attendants for service and diversion.  Unable to sleep, except at long intervals, in snatches of fitful dozing, she had a horror of being alone for an instant, from dusk until dawn; was ingenious in contrivances to surprise an unwary watcher nodding upon her post; plenteous and plaintive in lamentations, if the device succeeded.  Fifty times a night her pillows must be shaken, her drink, food, or medicine given, and after each of these offices had been performed, occurred the petition: 

“Now—­sit where I can see you whenever I open my eyes!  It drives me crazy to imagine for a moment that I am by myself.  I want to be sure all the while that some living human being is near at hand.  I have such frightful dreams!  I awake always with the impression that I am drowning or suffocating, or floating away into a sea of darkness alone!”

With the light of day, her spirits revived, and her hopes of speedy recovery.

“You need not grudge waiting upon me now, for I shall be up and about shortly—­well and spry as the best of you!” she would say.  “And while I am playing invalid, I mean to have my quantum of attention.  I have been avaricious of devotion all my life, and this is a golden chance that may never happen again.”

Her husband she would not willingly suffer to leave her for an instant.  But for Mrs. Sutton’s management and kindly authority, he would have been condemned to take his meals at her bedside and from the same tray with herself.  She would be removed from the bed to the lounge by no other arms than his, and at any hour of the twenty-four he was liable to be called upon to read, sing, or talk her into composure.  Variable as ever in mood and fancy, and more capricious in the exhibition of these, she was fond, sullen, teasing, and mirthful with him as the humor of the moment dictated; sometimes assailing him with reproaches for his indifference and want of regard for her wishes and tastes, now that she was no longer young, pretty, and sprightly; at others, clinging to him with protestations of repentance and love, bewailing her waywardness and imploring his forbearance; then, taking him to task for the slightest inadvertence—­the spilling of a drop of her medicine or jarring of her sofa or bed; anon lauding him to the skies as the most skilful nurse she had, and enjoining upon all about her to render verbal testimonial to his irreproachableness as husband and man—­oh! it was a wearisome, oftentimes a revolting duty to listen to and bear with it all—­keep in mind though one did that the intolerable restlessness preluded centuries of dreamless repose.