is very ill, dying; he will soon be taken from us. Oh, what a fearful
day! First Orion's mother, then Paula, and now this to crown all! Oh,
Heliodora, Heliodora!"

She fell on her knees by the bed and pressed her face against her pitying
friend's bosom. Heliodora saw the tears which had risen with unaffected
feeling to the girl's eyes; her tender soul was full of sympathy with the
sorrow of such a gladsome young creature, who had already had so much to
suffer, and she leaned over the child, kissing her affectionately on the
brow, and murmuring words of consolation. Katharina clung to her
closely, and pointing to the top of her head where that burning hand had
pressed it, she said: "There, kiss there: there is where the pain is
worst!--Ah, that is nice, that does me good."

And, as the tender-hearted Heliodora's fresh lips rested on the plague-
tainted hair, Katharina closed her eyes and felt as a gladiator might who
hitherto has only tried his weapons on the practising ground, and now for
the first time uses them in the arena to pierce his opponent's heart.
She had a vision of herself as some one else, taller and stronger than
she was; aye, as Death itself, the destroyer, breathing herself into her
victim's breast.

These feelings entirely possessed her as she knelt on the soft carpet,
and she did not notice that another woman was crossing it noiselessly to
her comforter's bed-side, with a glance of intelligence at Heliodora.
Just as she exclaimed: "Another kiss there-it burns so dreadfully," she
felt two hands on her temples and two lips, not Heliodora's, were pressed
on her head.

She looked up in astonishment and saw the smiling face of her mother, who