the dying light
on them had deceived him; the same stillness was over her. He placed
his ear close to her lips for an instant, and then resumed his place,
not stirring from it again. The slow current of his blood seemed to
have come to a pause--he was waiting as a man waits with his head on
the block ere the axe descends--as a mother waits to hear that the
breath of life has entered her new-born child.

The sun rose bright in a cloudless sky. As the fresh, sharp air of the
early dawn warmed under its spreading rays, the women entered the
apartment again, and partly drew aside the curtain and shutter from the
window. The beams of the new light fell fair and glorifying on the
girl's face; the faint, calm breezed ruffled the lighter locks of her
hair. Once this would have awakened her; but it did not disturb her
now.

Soon after the voice of the child who sojourned with the women in the
house was heard beneath, in the hall, through the half-opened door of
the room. The little creature was slowly ascending the stairs, singing
her faltering morning song to herself. She was preceded on her
approach by a tame dove, bought at the provision market outside the
walls, but preserved for the child as a pet and plaything by its
mother. The bird fluttered, cooing, into the room, perched upon the
head of the couch, and began dressing its feathers there. The women
had caught the infection of the old man's enthralling suspense; and
moved not to bid the child retire, or to take away the dove from its
place--they watched like him. But the soft, lulling notes of the bird
were powerless over the girl's ear, as the light sunbeam over her
face--still she never woke.

The child entered, and pausing in her song, climbed on to the side of
the couch. She held out one little hand for the dove to perch upon,
placed the other lightly on Antonina's shoulder, and pressed her fresh,
rosy lips to girl's faded cheek. 'I and my bird have come to make
Antonina well this morning,' she said gravely.

The still, heavily-closed eyelids moved!--they quivered, opened,
closed, then opened again. The eyes had a faint, dreaming, unconscious
look; but Antonina lived! Antonina was awakened at last to another day
on earth!

Her father's rigid, straining gaze still remained fixed upon her as at
first, but on his countenance there was a blank, an absence of all
appearance of sensation and life. The women, as they looked on
Antonina and looked on h