mer of something that was not
quite darkness, rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding night
was shivering and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled end.
Florence remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she had noted
this bleak time, and felt its influence, as if in some hidden natural
antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy.

Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause of her
having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no less than
in her ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to break the
spell of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps towards the
chamber where she slept.

The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her hesitating
hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning; still more
surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but partially undressed,
was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had crumbled and dropped
away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air; and in their light, and
in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp with which she held the
elbows of her chair as if about to start up, Florence saw such fierce
emotion that it terrified her.

'Mama!' she cried, 'what is the matter?'

Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face,
that Florence was more frightened than before.

'Mama!' said Florence, hurriedly advancing. 'Dear Mama! what is the
matter?'

'I have not been well,' said Edith, shaking, and still looking at her in
the same strange way. 'I have had had dreams, my love.'

'And not yet been to bed, Mama?'

'No,' she returned. 'Half-waking dreams.'

Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come closer
to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, 'But what does
my bird do here? What does my bird do here?'

'I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you to-night, and in not
knowing how Papa was; and I--'

Florence stopped there, and said no more.

'Is it late?' asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that mingled
with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.

'Very late. Near day.'

'Near day!' she repeated in surprise.

'Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?' said Florence.

Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with the
same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as before;
but she presently said, 'Nothing, nothing. A blow.' And then she
said, 'My Flor