s though she were in perfect
health. She knew her own failings, was conscious of her worldly
tendencies, and perceived that her old servant was thinking of it.
And then sundry odd thoughts, half-digested thoughts, ideas too
difficult for her present strength, crossed her brain. Had it been
wicked of her when she was well to hope that a scheming woman should
not succeed in betraying a man by her schemes into an ill-assorted
marriage; and if not wicked then, was it wicked now because she was
ill? And from that thought her mind travelled on to the ordinary
practices of death-bed piety. Could an assumed devotion be of use to
her now,--such a devotion as Martha was enjoining upon her from hour
to hour, in pure and affectionate solicitude for her soul? She had
spoken one evening of a game of cards, saying that a game of cribbage
would have consoled her. Then Martha, with a shudder, had suggested
a hymn, and had had recourse at once to a sleeping draught. Miss
Stanbury had submitted, but had understood it all. If cards were
wicked, she had indeed been a terrible sinner. What hope could there
be now, on her death-bed, for one so sinful? And she could not repent
of her cards, and would not try to repent of them, not seeing the
evil of them; and if they were innocent, why should she not have the
consolation now,--when she so much wanted it? Yet she knew that the
whole household, even Dorothy, would be in arms against her, were she
to suggest such a thing. She took the hymn and the sleeping draught,
telling herself that it would be best for her to banish such ideas
from her mind. Pastors and masters had laid down for her a mode of
living, which she had followed, but indifferently perhaps, but still
with an intention of obedience. They had also laid down a mode of
dying, and it would be well that she should follow that as closely
as possible. She would say nothing more about cards. She would
think nothing more of Camilla French. But, as she so resolved, with
intellect half asleep, with her mind wandering between fact and
dream, she was unconsciously comfortable with an assurance that if
Mr. Gibson did marry Camilla French, Camilla French would lead him
the very devil of a life.

During three days Dorothy went about the house as quiet as a mouse,
sitting nightly at her aunt's bedside, and tending the sick woman
with the closest care. She, too, had been now and again somewhat
startled by the seeming worldliness of her aunt in her il