s ear. She looked up. "Mamma," she said--"Mamma!
Did _you_ make the music?" Her head fell back, she closed her
eyes.--That was all.

"She loved music so dearly," said one of the women weeping.

"She has it now," replied the good old doctor, laying down the little
hand from which the pulse had ebbed away. "Don't cry so over her, my
good girl. She was a tender flower for such a life as this. Depend upon
it, it is better as it is. Heaven is a home-like place for such little
ones as she, and the angels' singing will be sweeter to her ears than
the music of your brass band."

[Illustration]

LADY QUEEN ANNE.

"WHERE is Annie?" demanded old Mrs. Pickens.

"I'm sure I don't know. Not far away, for I heard her voice just now
singing in the woods near the house."

"That child is always singing, always," went on Mrs. Pickens in a
melancholy voice. "What she finds to sing about in this miserable place
I cannot imagine. It's really unnatural!"

"Oh, no! mother,--not unnatural. Remember what a child she is. She
hardly remembers the old life, or misses it. The sun shines, and she
sings,--she can't help it. We ought to be glad instead of sorry that she
doesn't feel the changes as we do."

"Well, I _am_ glad," responded the old lady. "You needn't take me up so
sharply, Susan. All I say is that it seems to me _unreasonable_."

Miss Pickens glanced about the room, and suppressed a sigh. It was,
indeed, a miserable dwelling, scarcely better than a hut. Very few of
you who read this have ever seen a place so comfortless or so poor. The
roof let in rain. Through the cracked, uneven floor the ground could be
distinctly seen. A broken window-pane was stopped by an old hat thrust
into the hole. For furniture was only a rusty stove, a table, three
chairs, a few battered utensils for cooking, and a bed laid on the floor
of the inner room,--that was all. And the dwellers in this wretched
home, for which they were indebted to the charity of friends scarcely
richer than themselves, were ladies born and bred, accustomed to all the
comforts and enjoyments of life.

It was the old story,--alas! too common in these times,--the story of a
Southern family reduced to poverty by the ravages of war. Six years
before, all had been different. Then the fighting was not begun, and the
Southern Confederacy was a thing to boast over and make speeches about.
The gray uniforms were smart and new then; the volunteers eager and full
of zeal. All