“If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised,” said the apothecary’s apprentice, intent upon the toothpick’s point. “It’s a breakup of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?”

The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the affirmative.

“Then perhaps she’ll go off in that way, if you don’t make a row,” said the young man. “Put the light on the floor. She won’t see it there.”

The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed.