I am sure I wish I didn't feel as I do; it only makes me completely wretched! I wish I _could_ be as easy as the rest of you!" And the "rest of them" had good reason to breathe the same prayer, for Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology for all sorts of inflictions on every one about her.

Every word that was spoken by anybody, everything that was done or was not done everywhere, was only a new proof that she was surrounded by hard-hearted, insensible beings, who were unmindful of her peculiar sorrows.

Poor Eva heard some of these speeches; and nearly cried her little eyes out, in pity for her mamma, and in sorrow that she should make her so much distress.
In a week or two, there was a great improvement of symptoms,--one of those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable disease so often beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of the grave.

Eva's step was again in the garden,--in the balconies; she played and laughed again,--and her father, in a transport, declared that they should soon have her as hearty as anybody.

Miss Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this illusive truce.