ut the heart out of
a fawn, what the hounds had barely left life in. I can't bear the
thought of having to tell her--"

Dyce covered her face with her shawl, to stifle her sobs, and her large
frame shook. Mrs. Singleton whispered:

"Tell me quick. What is it."

"Miss Ellie is dead. I got there three days after she was buried."

The warden's wife sank into a chair, and drew the weeping negro into
one beside her.

"Do you know exactly what time she died?"

"Yes--I had it all put down in black and white. She died on Tuesday
night, just as the clock struck two; and the hospital nurse says--Lord,
amercy, Miss Susan! are you going to faint? You have turned ashy!"

As Mrs. Singleton's thoughts recurred to the fact that it was at that
hour that Beryl lay in the stupor of the crisis, from which she awoke
perfectly conscious, and recalled the dream that the sick girl held as
a vision, she felt a vague but bewildering dread seize her faculties,
in defiance of cool reason, and scoffing scepticism.

"Go on, Dyce. I felt a little sick. Tell me--"

She paused and listened to an unusual and inexplicable noise issuing
from the next room; the harsh sound of something scraping the bare
floor.

"You must pick your time to break this misery to that poor young thing.
I can't do it. I would run a mile sooner than face her with the news,
that her ma is dead; and I have grieved and cried, till I feel like my
brains had been put in a pot and biled. The Lord knows His bizness, of
course; yes, of course He knows the best to do; but 'pears to me, His
mercy hid its face behind His wrath, when He saw fit to let that poor
innercent young creetur in there get well, after her ma was laid in the
grave. It will be a harder heart than mine what can stand by, and tell
her she is motherless."

"There is no need to tell her. She knows it."

"How? Did she get the letter the Doctor said he wrote?"

"No. She thinks her mother--"

The noise explained itself. Too feeble to walk alone, Beryl had pushed
a chair before her, until she reached the door, and now stood grasping
it, swaying to and fro, as she endeavored to steady herself. One hand
held at her throat the black shawl, whose loosened folds fell like a
mourning mantle to her feet, the other clutched the door, against the
edge of which she leaned for support.

"Dyce, I have known for some days that I have no mother in this world.
I have seen her. Your kind heart dreads giving me pain, but no