e of the day. The winter darkness had settled down before she
returned, all glowing and rosy, and bright-eyed. Her blood was racing
through her body. Her lips were parted. The drudgery of the past three
weeks seemed to have been blotted out by this one radiant afternoon.

The house was dark when she entered. It seemed very quiet, and close,
and depressing after the sparkle and rush of the afternoon on the river.
"Mother! Mother dear! Still sleeping?"

Mrs. Brandeis stirred, sighed, awoke. Fanny flicked on the light. Her
mother was huddled in a kimono on the sofa. She sat up rather dazedly
now, and stared at Fanny.

"Why--what time is it? What? Have I been sleeping all afternoon? Your
mother's getting old."

She yawned, and in the midst of it caught her breath with a little cry
of pain.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

Molly Brandeis pressed a hand to her breast. "A stitch, I guess. It's
this miserable cold coming on. Is there any asperin in the house? I'll
dose myself after supper, and take a hot foot bath and go to bed. I'm
dead."

She ate less for supper than she had for dinner. She hardly tasted the
cup of tea that Fanny insisted on making for her. She swayed a little as
she sat, and her lids came down over her eyes, flutteringly, as if the
weight of them was too great to keep up. At seven she was up-stairs, in
bed, sleeping, and breathing heavily.

At eleven, or thereabouts, Fanny woke up with a start. She sat up in
bed, wide-eyed, peering into the darkness and listening. Some one was
talking in a high, queer voice, a voice like her mother's, and yet
unlike. She ran, shivering with the cold, into her mother's bedroom. She
switched on the light. Mrs. Brandeis was lying on the pillow, her eyes
almost closed, except for a terrifying slit of white that showed
between the lids. Her head was tossing to and fro on the pillow. She was
talking, sometimes clearly, and sometimes mumblingly.

"One gross cups and saucers... and now what do you think you'd like for
a second prize... in the basement, Aloysius... the trains... I'll see
that they get there to-day... yours of the tenth at hand..."

"Mother! Mother! Molly dear!" She shook her gently, then almost roughly.
The voice ceased. The eyes remained the same. "Oh, God!" She ran to the
back of the house. "Annie! Annie, get up! Mother's sick. She's out of
her head. I'm going to 'phone for the doctor. Go in with her."

She got the doctor at last. She tried to keep h