"She is downstairs. So quiet, and peaceful, and happy she looks.""Could she speak! Oh, if God--if I might but have heard her little voice! Mother, I used to dream of it. May I see her once again?

Oh, mother, if I strive very hard and God is very merciful, and I go to heaven, I shall not know her--I shall not know my own again: she will shun me as a stranger, and chug to Susan Palmer and to you. Oh, woe! Oh, woe!" She shook with exceeding sorrow.

In her earnestness of speech she had uncovered her face, and tried to read Mrs. Leigh's thoughts through her looks. And when she saw those aged eyes brimming full of tears, and marked the quivering lips, she threw her arms round the faithful mother's neck, and wept there, as she had done in many a childish sorrow, but with a deeper, a more wretched grief.

Her mother hushed her on her breast; and lulled her as if she were a baby; and she grew still and quiet.