CHAPTER XXV.
"Wasting away—away—away,
Slowly, silently, day after day.
Fainter, and fainter and fainter the flow,
Of the current of life more sluggish and slow,
And a ghastly glare in the glassy eye,
And the wan cheek tinged with a hectic dye."
In the dim gloom of a soft spring evening, a slender, graceful form bent silently over a low, curtained couch, gently fanning the annoying insects from the pale brow of its slumbering occupant. The apartment was furnished with almost princely magnificence. Curtains of the richest blue-wrought damask, hung in massy folds from ceiling to floor, before the deep bay-windows. Rosewood sofas and fauteuils, in costly coverings of the same soft color, rested on the brilliantly interwoven flowers of the Persian carpet, whose velvety softness echoed not the slightest tread. A fairy chandelier hung suspended from the lofty, corniced ceiling. Rare statuary decorated the mantel. Large mirrors and pictures in broad gilt frames adorned the walls. Marble stands, covered with deep-fringed cloths of gold, on which lay books in superb bindings, graced the several corners, and the carved mahogany bedstead, behind whose ample curtains of azure velvet the sleeper reposed, among white-piled cushions of softest down, vied in elegant luxury with the couch of an eastern princess. And there, with one white, wasted arm thrown above the head, all shorn of its bright wealth of auburn curls, and the other concealed 'neath the silken coverings, lay Edith Malcome, the blue veins almost starting from her pale brow, and a bright crimson spot on the sunken cheek. Alas, that earth's most lovely should fall the earliest victims to the withering hand of disease! The door did softly asunder, and her father entered. With an expression of deep care and suffering depicted on his handsome features, he approached the bed-side.
"Is she still sleeping?" demanded he, in a whisper which would have been inaudible to an ear less quick than that of the silent watcher.
"She is," was the ready answer, in the same hushed tone. He gazed intently for several moments on the attenuated form before him, while every variety of expression passed over his countenance.