disorder was "nothing serious," and that she would be able to meet her
engagements, and charged the thrifty dealer in fashionable head-gear and
furnished rooms by no means to let the fact that the star was ill "get
out." But the fever-flush that tinged the patient's pale cheeks and the
cough that racked her wasted frame seemed very like danger signals to
good Mrs. Fipps, and though she did not realize the hopelessness of the
case, her spirits were oppressed by a heaviness that would not be shaken
off.

Ill as Mrs. Poe, or Miss Arnold, as she was still sometimes called, was,
she had managed by a mighty effort of will and the aid of stimulants to
appear once or twice before the footlights. But her acting had been
spiritless and her voice weak and it finally became necessary for the
manager to explain that she was suffering from "chills and fevers," from
which he hoped rest and skillful treatment would relieve her and make
it possible for her to take her usual place. But she did not appear.
Gradually her true condition became generally known and in the hearts of
a kindly public disappointment gave place to sympathy. Some of the most
charitably disposed among the citizens visited her, bringing comforts
and delicacies for her and presents for the pretty, innocent babes who
all unconscious of the cloud that hung over them, played happily upon
the floor of the dark and bare room in which their mother's life was
burning out. Nurse Betty, an ample, motherly soul, with cheeks like
winter apples and eyes like blue china, and a huge ruffled cap hiding
her straggly grey locks from view--versatile Betty, who was not only
nurse for the children and lady's maid for the star, but upon occasion
appeared in small parts herself, hovered about the bed and ministered to
her dying mistress.

As the hours and days dragged by the patient grew steadily weaker and