her but her own: any eye but hers might close in momentary forgetfulness.
Down she sat, the lamp lighted, but its flame carefully screened from the sick man's face. The little table beside, supplied with all that could be needed, was at her side; her rosary in her hand, and again she began another vigil. Norbourne had at length fallen into a heavy sleep, and every hope hung on the state in which he might awaken from it. Mrs. Courtenaye could scarcely restrain herself from starting up in agony, when she thought on what the morrow might bring forth. The room was dark, but she was accustomed to its dim light, and there was not a feature in that white face—white as the pillow on which it rested—in which the slightest change was not distinctly visible to her. She rose, and bent over the sleeper: there was something in the utter helplessness of sickness that reminded her of infancy. A lapse of years went by, and she did not see the young man laid before her, but the little child, that loved no one but herself, whose whole world was fashioned by
