ousness shone more and more
brightly over her pathway, lighting her through the dark valley of
death. She no longer asked to be taken home, for she knew that could
not be, but she wondered why her brother stayed so long from Glenwood,
when he knew that she was dying.

On her return from the city, Jenny had told her as gently as possible
of his conduct towards Ella, and of her fears that he was becoming
more dissipated than ever. For a time Rose lay perfectly still, and
Jenny, thinking she was asleep, was about to leave the room, when her
sister called her back, and bidding her sit down by her side, said,
"Tell me, Jenny, do you think Henry has any love for me?"

"He would be an unnatural brother if he had not," answered Jenny, her
own heart yearning more tenderly towards her sister, whose gentle
manner she could not understand.

"Then," resumed Rose, "if he loves me, he will be sorry when I am
dead, and perhaps it may save him from ruin."

The tears dropped slowly from her long eyelashes, while Jenny, laying
her round rosy cheek against the thin pale face near her, sobbed out,
"You must not die,--dear Rose. You must not die, and leave us."

From that time the failure was visible and rapid, and though letters
went frequently to Henry, telling him of his sister's danger, he still
lingered by the side of the brilliant beauty, while each morning Rose
asked, "Will he come to-day?" and each night she wept that he was not
there.

Calmly and without a murmur she had heard the story of their ruin from
her father, who could not let her die without undeceiving her. Before
that time she had asked to be taken back to Mount Auburn, designating
the spot where she would be buried, but now she insisted upon being
laid by the running brook at the foot of her grandmother's garden, and
near a green mossy bank where the spring blossoms were earliest found,
and where the flowers of autumn lingered longest. The music of the
falling water, she said would soothe her as she slept, and its cool
moisture keep the grass green and fresh upon her early grave.

One day, when Mrs. Lincoln was sitting by her daughter and, as she
frequently did, uttering invectives against Mount Holyoke, &c., Rose
said, "Don't talk so, mother. Mount Holyoke Seminary had nothing to do
with hastening my death. I have done it myself by my own
carelessness;" and then she confessed how many times she had deceived
her mother, and thoughtlessly exposed her health, even