s Eva is gone to heaven; she is an angel."

"But I can't see her!" said Topsy. "I never shall see her!" and she
sobbed again.

They all stood a moment in silence.

"_She_ said she _loved_ me," said Topsy,--"she did! O, dear! oh, dear!
there an't _nobody_ left now,--there an't!"

"That's true enough" said St. Clare; "but do," he said to Miss Ophelia,
"see if you can't comfort the poor creature."

"I jist wish I hadn't never been born," said Topsy. "I didn't want to be
born, no ways; and I don't see no use on 't."

Miss Ophelia raised her gently, but firmly, and took her from the room;
but, as she did so, some tears fell from her eyes.

"Topsy, you poor child," she said, as she led her into her room, "don't
give up! _I_ can love you, though I am not like that dear little child.
I hope I've learnt something of the love of Christ from her. I can love
you; I do, and I'll try to help you to grow up a good Christian girl."

Miss Ophelia's voice was more than her words, and more than that were
the honest tears that fell down her face. From that hour, she acquired
an influence over the mind of the destitute child that she never lost.

"O, my Eva, whose little hour on earth did so much of good," thought St.
Clare, "what account have I to give for my long years?"

There were, for a while, soft whisperings and footfalls in the chamber,
as one after another stole in, to look at the dead; and then came the
little coffin; and then there was a funeral, and carriages drove to the
door, and strangers came and were seated; and there were white scarfs
and ribbons, and crape bands, and mourners dressed in black crape; and
there were words read from the Bible, and prayers offered; and St. Clare
lived, and walked, and moved, as one who has shed every tear;--to the
last he saw only one thing, that golden head in the coffin; but then
he saw the cloth spread over it, the lid of the coffin closed; and he
walked, when he was put beside the others, down to a little place at the
bottom of the garden, and there, by the mossy seat where she and Tom
had talked, and sung, and read so often, was the little grave. St. Clare
stood beside it,--looked vacantly down; he saw them lower the little
coffin; he heard, dimly, the solemn words, "I am the resurrection and
the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live;" and, as the earth was cast in and filled up the little grave,
he could not realize that it was his Eva that they