Anxious to divert his thoughts, she put into his hand a bunch of orange flowers and violets, which had been sent to her that day by Mr. Manning; and taking a book from the bed, she resumed the reading of "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," to which the invalid had never wearied of listening.
But she soon saw that for once he was indifferent; and, understanding the expression of the eyes that gazed out on the purple shadows shrouding the Apennines, she closed the volume, and laid the sufferer back on his pillow.
While she was standing before a table, preparing some nourishment to be given to him during the night, Mrs. Andrews came close to her and whispered: "Do you see much change? Is he really worse, or do my fears magnify every bad symptom?"
"He is much exhausted, but I trust the stimulants will revive him. You must go to bed early, and get a good sound sleep, for you look worn out. I will wake you if I see any decided change in him."
Mrs. Andrews hung for some time over her child's pillow, caressing him, saying tender, soothing, motherly things; and, after a while, she and Hattie kissed him, and went into the adjoining room, leaving him to the care of one whom he loved better than all the world beside.
It was late at night before the sound of laughter, song and chatter died away in the streets of Genoa the magnificent. While the human tide ebbed and flowed under the windows, Felix was restless, and his companion tried to interest him by telling him the history of the Dorias, and of the siege during which Massena won such glory. Her conversation drifted away, even to Ancona, and that sad, but touching incident, which Sismondi records, of the noble, patriotic young mother, who gave to a starving soldier the milk that her half- famished babe required, and sent him, thus refreshed and strengthened, to defend the walls of her beleaguered city.
The boy's fondness for history showed itself even then, and he listened attentively to her words.
At length silence reigned through the marble palaces, and Edna rose to place the small lamp in an alabaster vase.
As she did so, something flew into her face, and fluttered to the edge of the vase, and as she attempted to brush it off, she started back, smothering a cry of horror. It was the Sphinx Atropos, the Death's Head Moth; and there, upon its breast, appallingly distinct, grinned the ghastly, gray human skull. Twice it circled rapidly round the vase, uttering strange, stridulous sounds, then floated up to the canopy overarching Felix's bed, and poised itself on the carved frame, waiting and flapping its wings, vulture-like. Shuddering from head to foot, notwithstanding the protest which reason offered against superstition, the governess sat down to watch the boy's slumber.