"Will madame la comtesse allow me to arrange her pillows for her before she lies down again?"
"If you will be so good," replied Madame de Beaumesnil, for would not this little service keep her daughter beside her a few seconds longer?
Mademoiselle and madame la comtesse! If one could but have heard the tone in which the mother and daughter interchanged these cold and ceremonious appellations which had never before seemed so icy in character!
"I have to thank you once again, mademoiselle," said the countess, after she had lain down. "I find myself more and more comfortable, thanks to your kind attentions. The cordial, too, seems to have done me good, and I feel sure that I shall have a very comfortable night."
Herminie glanced dubiously at her hat and mantle. She feared that she would be dismissed on the maid's return, for it was quite likely that Madame de Beaumesnil would not care to hear any music that evening.
Unwilling to renounce her last hope, the young girl said, timidly:
"Madame la comtesse asked me to bring some selections from 'Oberon' this evening, but perhaps she does not care to listen to them."
"Quite the contrary, mademoiselle," said Madame de Beaumesnil, quickly. "You know how often your singing has mitigated my sufferings, and this evening I am feeling so well that music will prove, not an anodyne, but a genuine pleasure."
Herminie cast a quick glance at Madame de Beaumesnil, and was struck by the change in that lady's usually drawn and pallid countenance. A slight colour tinged her cheeks now, and her expression was calm, even smiling.
On beholding this metamorphosis, the girl's gloomy presentiments vanished. Hope revived in her heart, and she almost believed that her mother had been saved by one of those sudden changes so common in nervous maladies.