e there was silence, and then Lenora, again speaking, said,
"Mother, I have often been very wicked and disrespectful to you, and
if you should die, I should feel much happier knowing that you forgave
me. Will you do it, mother--say?"

Mrs. Hamilton comprehended only the words, "if you should die," so she
said: "Die, die! who says that I must die? I shan't--I can't; for what
could I tell her about her children, and how could I live endless ages
without water? I tried it once, and I can't do it. No, I can't. I
won't!"

In this way she talked all night; and though in the morning she was
more rational, she turned away from the clergyman, who at Lenora's
request had been sent for, saying:

"It's of no use, no use, I know all you would say, but it's too late,
too late!"

Thus she continued for three days, and at the close of the third it
became evident to all that she was dying, and Hester was immediately
sent to the hotel, with a request that the old porter would come
quickly. Half an hour after Lenora bent over her mother's pillow, and
whispered in her ear, "Mother, can you hear me?"

A pressure of the hand was the reply, and Lenora continued: "You have
not said that you forgave me, and now before you die, will you not
tell me so?"

There was another pressure of the hand, and Lenora again spoke:
"Mother, would you like to see him--my father? He is in the next
room."

This roused the dying woman, and starting up, she exclaimed, "See John
Carter! No, child, no! He'd only curse me. Let him wait until I am
dead, and then I shall not hear it."

In ten minutes more Lenora was sadly gazing upon the fixed, stony
features of the dead. A gray-haired man was at her side, and his lip
quivered, as he placed his hand upon the white, wrinkled brow of her
who had once been his wife. "She is fearfully changed," were his only
words, as he turned away from the bed of death.

True to her promise, Margaret came to attend her stepmother's funeral.
Walter accompanied her, and shuddered as he looked on the face of one
who had so darkened his home, and embittered his life. Kate was not
there, and when, after the burial, Lenora asked Margaret for her, she
was told of a little "Carrie Lenora," who with pardonable pride
"Walter thought was the only baby of any consequence in the world.
Margaret was going on with a glowing description of the babe's many
beauties, when she was interrupted by Lenora, who laid her face in her
lap and burst in