Surrounding objects failed to impress her attention; recollections and forebodings stagnated in her mind.

A marble composure prevailed over her features.

Sometimes her eyes wandered mechanically from the morsels of food by her side to her sleeping father, as her one vacant idea of watching for his service, till the feeble pulses of life had throbbed their last, alternately revived and declined; but no other evidences of bodily existence or mental activity appeared in her.

As she now sat in the half-darkened room, by the couch on which her father reposed--her features pale, calm, and rigid, her form enveloped in cold white drapery--there were moments when she looked like one of the penitential devotees of the primitive Church, appointed to watch in the house of mourning, and surprised in her saintly vigil by the advent of Death.
Time flowed on--the monotonous hours of the day waned again towards night; and plague and famine told their lapse in the fated highways of Rome.

For father and child the sand in the glass was fast running out, and neither marked it as it diminished.