ie returns I shall be dead and still, like our
own dear mother."

"Oh, Carrie, Carrie," sobbed the child, "don't leave me till Maggie
comes."

There was a footstep on the stairs, and Carrie, without replying to
her brother, said quickly, "Take this paper, Willie, and give it to
father when he comes; let no one see it--Lenora, mother, nor any one."

Willie promised compliance, and had but just time to conceal the note
in his bosom ere Mrs. Hamilton entered the room, accompanied by the
physician, to whom she loudly expressed her regrets that her husband
had not come, saying that she had that morning telegraphed again,
although he could not now reach home until the morrow.

"To-morrow I shall never see," said Carrie, faintly. And she spoke
truly, too, for even then death was freezing her life-blood with the
touch of his icy hand. To the last she seemed conscious of the tiny
arms which so fondly encircled her neck; and when the soul had drifted
far out on the dark channel of death the childish words of "Carrie,
Carrie, speak once more," roused her, and folding her brother more
closely to her bosom, she murmured, "Willie, darling Willie, our
mother is waiting for us both."

Mrs. Hamilton, who stood near, now bent down, and laying her hand on
the pale, damp brow said gently, "Carrie, dear, have you no word of
love for this mother?"

There was a visible shudder, an attempt to speak, a low moan, in which
the word "Walter" seemed struggling to be spoken; and then death, as
if impatient of delay, bore away the spirit, leaving only the form
which in life had been most beautiful. Softly Lenora closed over the
blue eyes the long, fringed lids, and pushed back from the forehead
the sunny tresses which clustered so thickly around it; then, kissing
the white lips and leaving on the face of the dead traces of her
tears, she led Willie from the room, soothing him in her arms until
he fell asleep.

Elsewhere we have said that for a few days Willie had not seemed well;
but so absorbed were all in Carrie's more alarming symptoms that no
one had heeded him, although his cheeks were flushed with fever, and
his head was throbbing with pain. He was in the habit of sleeping in
his parents' room, and that night his loud breathings and uneasy
turnings disturbed and annoyed his mother, who at last called out in
harsh tones, "Willie, Willie, for mercy's sake stop that horrid noise!
I shall never get asleep this way. I know there's no need o