“Oh, my dear, dear Agatha! my dear, dear Agatha! what, what is this? Speak to me! Oh, speak to me!”
The strained eyes of the dying girl suddenly softened, and turned upon the speaker a beseeching, helpless look, and then the rigid form suddenly relaxed, and became a dead weight in the arms of Eudora.
Lady Leaton, followed by several of the female servants, now came hurrying in.
“What is the matter? Is she worse?” exclaimed the mother, hurrying to the bedside.
“Lady Leaton, she is dead!” cried Eudora, in a voice of anguish.
Let us draw a vail over the grief of that mother. In all this world of troubles, there is no sorrow like that of a widowed mother grieving for the death of her only child.
At first Lady Leaton would not believe in the extent of her affliction. She wildly insisted that her child could not, should not be dead—dead without a parting word, or look, or prayer! She sent off messengers in haste to bring their medical attendant. And not until Dr. Watkins had come and examined the patient, and pronounced life fled, could Lady Leaton be made to believe the truth, or induced to leave the chamber of death. Then she fainted in the arms of Princess Pezzilini, and was borne to her own apartment in a state of insensibility.
It was some hours after this that Dr. Watkins somewhat peremptorily demanded a private interview with Malcolm Montrose.
The young man, in deep affliction for the death of her whom he loved as a dear sister, gave audience to the doctor in the library.
The family physician entered with a grave and stern brow, and seating himself at the library-table, opposite Mr. Montrose, began—