two years we should be
willing to acknowledge as ours."

Ester sat up flushed and eager. "That is a very nice idea," she said,
brightly. "I'm so glad you told me of it. Sadie, I'll write you a
letter for that day. I'll write it to-morrow, and you are to keep it
sealed until the evening of that day on which you graduate. Then when
you have come up to your room and are quite alone, you are to read it.
Will you promise, Sadie?"

But Sadie only laughed merrily, and said "You are growing sentimental,
Ester, as sure is the world. How can I make any such promise as that?
I shall probably chatter to you like a magpie instead of reading any
thing."

This young girl utterly ignored so far as was possible the fact of
Ester's illness, never allowing it to be admitted in her presence
that there were any fears as to the result. Ester had ceased trying
to convince her, so now she only smiled quietly and repeated her
petition.

"Will you promise, Sadie?"

"Oh yes, I'll promise to go to the mountains of the moon on foot and
alone, across lots--_any thing_ to amuse you. You're to be pitied, you
see, until you get over this absurd habit of cuddling down among the
pillows."

So a few days thereafter she received with much apparent glee the
dainty sealed letter addressed to herself, and dropped it in her
writing-desk, but ere she turned the key there dropped a tear or two
on the shining lid.

Well, as the long, hot summer days grew longer and fiercer, the
invalid drooped and drooped, and the home faces grew sadder. Yet
there still came from time to time those rallying days, wherein Sadie
confidently pronounced her to be improving rapidly. And so it came
to pass that so sweet was the final message that the words of the
wonderful old poem proved a Siting description of it all.

"They thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died."

Into the brightness of the September days there intruded one, wherein
all the house was still, with that strange, solemn stillness that
comes only to those homes where death has left a seal. From the
doors floated the long crape signals, and in the great parlors were
gathering those who had come to take their parting look at the white,
quiet face. "ESTER RIED, aged 19," so the coffin-plate told them. Thus
early had the story of her life been finished.

Only one arrangement had Ester made for this last scene in her life
drama.

"I am going to preach my own funeral sermon," she