their bills. Neil felt almost sure that this last would touch his
mother, when nothing else could reach her, and he was right. Neither she
nor her husband cared to have their friends contribute to the needs of
any one who bore their name, and the letter which Lady Jane sent to her
son contained sixty pounds, which she bade him use to the best possible
advantage, adding that he was to leave Rome as soon as he could, with
any show of decency. This, Neil would gladly have done if he could, but
when his mother's letter arrived it found him plunged into a
complication of difficulties from which he could not extricate himself.
Daisy had suddenly been stricken down with the fever, which developed so
rapidly and assumed so violent a form that Neil's strength, and courage,
and patience were taxed to the utmost, and he might have succumbed
entirely, if it had not been for Flossie, who was equal to any
emergency, and who resisted all her grandmother's efforts to get her out
of the fever-hole, as she designated the hotel.

Flossie would not go so long as Bessie needed her. She was not afraid,
she said, and every morning her eyes were just as saucy and mirthful,
and the roses on her cheek just as bright, as if she had not been up
half the night, soothing the wildly delirious Daisy, and encouraging
Neil, who, as the days went by, rose a little in her estimation. He
threw the obnoxious leek from his window, when, as Flossie had
predicted, its fumes became intolerable, and he gave up the large, sunny
room which he had occupied at first, and took a smaller, less expensive
one, and he learned to deny himself many things before that terrible
fever had burned itself out. He gave up _table d'hote_ and lunch, and
took to the restaurants outside. He gave up driving on the Pincian Hill,
or having carriages at all, and patronized the street-cars and omnibuses
when he went out for an airing, as Flossie insisted that he should do
each day.

"I do believe I could make something of him in time," the energetic
little lady thought. "But, dear me! Bessie would humor all his fancies,
and be a perfect slave to his caprices; even now she will not let him
wait upon her much, for fear of tiring him."

And so the days went on until two weeks were gone, and then one April
morning it was whispered among the few guests remaining in the hotel,
that death was again in the house, and more trunks were packed in haste,
and more people left, until the fourth floo