g more and more excited. "You may have all the pillows you wish
for, and sit up in bed if you like, but you mustn't stay here any
longer," and he gathered her in his arms and quickly carried her to
the next room. She made no resistance, and took the medicine which
Mrs. Martin brought, without a word. There was a blazing fire now in
the bedroom fire-place, and, as she lay still, her face took on a
satisfied, rested look. Her mother sat beside her, tearful, and yet
contented and glad to have her near, and the others whispered together
in the kitchen. It might have been the last night of a long illness
instead of the sudden, startling entrance of sorrow in human shape.
"No," said the doctor, "she cannot last much longer with such a cough
as that, Mrs. Dyer. She has almost reached the end of it. I only hope
that she will go quickly."

And sure enough; whether the fatal illness had run its natural course,
or whether the excitement and the forced strength of the evening
before had exhausted the small portion of strength that was left, when
the late dawn lighted again those who watched, it found them sleeping,
and one was never to wake again in the world she had found so
disappointing to her ambitions, and so untrue to its fancied promises.

The doctor had promised to return early, but it was hardly daylight
before there was another visitor in advance of him. Old Mrs. Meeker, a
neighbor whom nobody liked, but whose favor everybody for some reason
or other was anxious to keep, came knocking at the door, and was let
in somewhat reluctantly by Mrs. Jake, who was just preparing to go
home in order to send one or both the brothers to the village and to
acquaint John Thacher with the sad news of his sister's death. He was
older than Adeline, and a silent man, already growing to be elderly in
his appearance. The women had told themselves and each other that he
would take this sorrow very hard, and Mrs. Thacher had said
sorrowfully that she must hide her daughter's poor worn clothes, since
it would break John's heart to know she had come home so beggarly. The
shock of so much trouble was stunning the mother; she did not
understand yet, she kept telling the kind friends who sorrowed with
her, as she busied herself with the preparations for the funeral. "It
don't seem as if 'twas Addy," she said over and over again, "but I
feel safe about her now, to what I did," and Mrs. Jake and Mrs.
Martin, good helpful souls and brimful of compas