her mother abandoned all her old
habits of life, and neither played nor bet, nor practiced any of her
wiles upon the opposite sex for the purpose of extorting money from
them. And all this Daisy promised.

"I'll be as circumspect as a Methodist parson's wife," she said; and she
kept her word as well as it was possible for her to do.

She neither played, nor bet, nor coaxed money from her acquaintances by
pretty tales of poverty, and if she sometimes bandied familiar jests
with her gentlemen friends, Bessie did not know it, and there was
springing up in her heart a strong feeling of respect for her mother
who, just as the new life was beginning, was to be taken from her.

"Oh, mamma," she sobbed, putting her poor, pale, face close to that of
the dying woman, for Neil had taken her in his arms and laid her beside
her mother "oh, mamma, how can I give you up." Then, as the greater
fear for her mother's future overmastered every other feeling, she said:
"Speak to me, mother; tell me you are not afraid; tell me you are sorry;
tell me, oh, my Heavenly Father, if mother must die, forgive her all the
past and take her to Thyself."

"Yes," Daisy murmured, moving a little uneasily, "Forgive me all the
past--and there is so much to forgive. I am sorry, and most of all for
Archie and Bessie, whom I neglected so long. Oh, how pleasant the old
home at Stoneleigh looks to me now. Bury me by Archie in the grass, it
is so quiet there; and now it is getting late. I think I will retire.
Good-night!"

And then, folding her hands together, she said the "Now I lay me," and
Flossie, who was bending over her, knew that she was dead, and motioning
to Neil, bade him take Bessie away.

Neil was very tender and very kind and loving to the poor little girl
quivering with pain, but uttering no sound and shedding no tear as she
lay passive in his arms, but he felt that he was badly abused, and that
the burden laid upon him was heavier than he could bear. Could he have
had his way, Daisy would have been buried in the Protestant cemetery, in
Rome. This would have been far less expensive and have saved him no end
of trouble. But when he suggested it to Bessie, she said "No" so
decidedly that he gave it up and nerved himself to meet what he never
could have met but for Flossie, who, as far as she could, managed
everything, even to battling fiercely with the proprietor, whose bill
she compelled him to lessen by several hundred francs, and when he