tly; "think that--at last--I loved you. So tired--let me sleep!"

Is there truth in the old superstitious stories that we hear? True in
their spiritual sense or no, just then a black pigeon that had hovered
about the house for days alighted upon the window-sill, and the rustle
of its wings sounded loud and painful in the oppressive stillness of
that evening.

From the fields the soft lowing of the kine came mellowed and sweet, and
from the wood behind the house a thrush sang its evening hymn to the
passing day, while, as the west grew less ruddy, the soft dawn-like
light intensified in the north.

It needed but one sound to add to the solemnity of the time, and that
was the heavy knoll of the church bell, which rang out the curfew, as it
had announced the hour from the far-back days when it was cast and
blessed, and holy hands first hung it there.

Just then little Miss Burge uttered a faint ejaculation of relief, for
there was a quick step upon the gravel; but ere it reached the door
there was a deep sigh in the shadowed room, Hazel's large, soft eyes
grew dilate, and their light was for ever gone; another bridegroom had
snatched her from her simple-hearted lover's arms--and that bridegroom
was Death!

The End.

End of Project Gutenberg's The New Mistress, by George Manville Fenn

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