d put my head on
her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her
everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't
be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you
are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a
great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my
face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and
wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold
and difficult without a mother."

The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her
unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not
related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors,
now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself
out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little
importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died.

They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for
life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here
was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost
anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and
nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be
interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann
observed once at least every day that it was _schrecklich_, and went on
with her embroidery; Fraeulein Kuhraeuber cried a little when, on her way
to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and
the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case
would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and
spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal,
joyous life.

As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest
and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that
possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If
she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those
days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs.
"Here or somewhere else--anywhere she likes--she shall live and be
happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except
that there will be no shadow between us now."

But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the
baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the cor