en
weeping.

"These are my sisters' voices," said the child. "Mother, you have
surely not forgotten them?"

Then she remembered those who were left behind. A deep feeling of
anxiety pervaded her mind; she gazed intently before her, and spectres
seemed to hover around her; she fancied that she knew some of them;
they floated through the Hall of Death, on towards the dark curtain,
and there they vanished. Would her husband, her daughters, appear
there? No; their lamentations were still to be heard from above. She
had nearly forgotten them for the dead.

"Mother, the bells of heaven are ringing," said the child. "Now the
sun is about to rise."

And an overwhelming, blinding light streamed around her. The child was
gone, and she felt herself lifted up. She raised her head, and saw
that she was lying in the churchyard, upon the grave of her child. But
in her dream God had become a prop for her feet, and a light to her
mind. She threw herself on her knees and prayed:--

"Forgive me, O Lord my God, that I wished to detain an everlasting
soul from its flight into eternity, and that I forgot my duties to the
living Thou hast graciously spared to me!"

And as she uttered this prayer it appeared as if her heart felt
lightened of the burden that had crushed it. Then the sun broke forth
in all its splendour, a little bird sang over her head, and all the
church bells around began to ring the matin chimes. All seemed holy
around her; her heart seemed to have drunk in faith and holiness; she
acknowledged the might and the mercy of God; she remembered her
duties, and felt a longing to regain her home. She hurried thither,
and leaning over her still sleeping husband, she awoke him with the
touch of her warm lips on his cheek. Her words were those of love and
consolation, and in a tone of mild resignation she exclaimed,--

"God's will is always the best!"

Her husband and her daughters were astonished at the change in her,
and her husband asked her,--

"Where did you so suddenly acquire this strength--this pious
resignation?"

And she smiled on him and her daughters as she replied,--

"I derived it from God, by the grave of my child."

_Charming._

The sculptor Alfred--surely you know him? We all know him. He used to
engrave gold medallions; went to Italy, and returned again. He was
young then; indeed, he is young now, though about half a score of
years older than he was at that time.

He returned home, and wen