"She is asleep-yonder-in there." "Thank God!" "Ay! Thank God!" returned the old man. "I have prayed to Him many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?" "Nor that?" he cried with a triumphant smile. "Can anybody know that voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!" Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp. "She is still asleep," he whispered. "You were right. She did not call-unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by watching, I have seen her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here." "She is sleeping soundly," he said; "but no wonder. Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She used to feed them, sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from her!" Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand. "Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell," he murmured, "when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them? Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying, Where is Nell-sweet Nell?'—and sob and weep because they do not see thee? She was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding-she had a tender way with them, indeed she had!" Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears. "Her little homely dress-her favourite!" cried the old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. "She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it-she shall have it. I would not vex my darling for the wide world's riches. See here these shoes-how worn they are!-she kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the ground. They told me afterwards that the stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not see how lame she was-but yet she had my hand in hers, and seemed to lead me still." was well then. He pressed them to his lips, and, having carefully put them back again, went on communing with himself-looking wistfully from time to time towards the chamber he had lately visited. "She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she We must have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early as she used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning-time. I often tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon the dewy ground to guide me." She was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now. D She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. "When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.” Those were her words. She was dead. dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was Her little bird-a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed-was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless for ever. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquii beauty and profound repose. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death. The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile-the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast-the garden she had tended-the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour-the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday-could know her never more. * When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed. She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but, as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said "God bless you!" with great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been. Opening her eyes at last from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face-such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead at first. She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked together by the river-side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, she had often said of late. She wished there was somebody to take her love to Kit. And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him but with something of her old, clear, merry laugh. For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but, with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered, save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them-faded like the light upon a summer's evening. The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay, before he went to bed. He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone; and could not bear the thought. * * * * And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice-rung its remorseless toll for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life-to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing-grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old-the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it? * Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some-and they were not a few-knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow. Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths |