led trunk, and was cruel enough to say,--

"You used your _old magic_ to make ready for us, Madeleine, and you
have used it again to efface all our footprints here. I can hardly
persuade myself that I occupied this room."

Madeleine felt the implied reproach; but without answering the unmerited
rebuke, she asked, "Is your father doing well?"

"He is sleeping at this moment; but it is very evident that he is going
to have a sorrowful time; he will miss you so much; and my grandmother
is as cold and hard as though her illness had petrified her more
completely than ever."

That was another observation to which Madeleine could find no reply.
Without essaying to make an appropriate answer, she said, "It will never
do to let the whole burden of nursing your father devolve on you,
Maurice; you will be broken down. May I plan for you? You need an
experienced _garde malade_. It would be difficult, at short notice, to
procure any so reliable, and so well versed in the duties of a nurse as
Mrs. Lawkins. Then, too, your father is accustomed to see her near him;
and a familiar face will be more welcome than a stranger's. Do you think
it would be wrong to engage her without your grandmother's knowing that
she had been in my employment?"

"I have no scruples on that head," returned Maurice; "but there are
others which I cannot readily get over. She is your house-keeper, and I
have heard you say she was very valuable to you. I know that it is
exceedingly difficult to obtain good domestics in this country; you
cannot replace her at once. How can you spare her?"

"Easily,--easily; do not talk of that. I will speak to her and she will
go to you to-morrow morning. Meantime, I advise you to inform the
countess that a nurse is coming. One charge more: your father is so much
better that instead of wearing yourself out by sitting up with him, it
would be wiser to have a sofa, upon which you could take rest, placed
beside his bed. M. de Bois will gladly take his turn in watching, but
after a few nights, I think Count Tristan will need no one but Mrs.
Lawkins."

"Ah, Madeleine"--

Madeleine interrupted him. "One word about the delicacies which you
cannot readily procure in a hotel, and which it would deprive me of a
great happiness if I could not send. As the countess is now up, and
might see and recognize Robert, I will order him to deliver the salver
to the waiter who attends upon your rooms. Would it not be advisable to
say a few wo