ce vibrating
through the entry in some sweet song. She scarcely ever looked out at the
window--all was dreary there; besides, she fancied that the wind "looked at
her." It was in her armchair by the antique fire-place that she was most
comfortable. She never wearied of watching the pictured tiles; and one,
representing the infant Christ in the manger, was her favorite. There she
sat from sunny morn until shadowy twilight, with her delicate hands crossed
on her lap, while Mortimer read to her. Sometimes she would fix her large,
thoughtful eyes on the fantastic grouping of the embers at her feet, and
then she did not hear him reading.

She was wandering in Soul-land.

Heaven's gates are open when the world's are shut. The gates of this world
were closing on Bell, and her feet were hesitating at the threshold of
Heaven, waiting only for the mystic word to enter!

Very beautiful Bell was. Her perfect soul could not hide itself in the
pale, spiritual face. It was visible in her thought and in her eyes. There
was a world of tender meaning in her smile. The Angel of Patience had
folded her in its wings, and she was meek, holy. As Mortimer sat by her
before the evening lamps were lighted, and watched the curious pictures
which the flickering drift-wood painted on the walls, he knew that she
could not last till the violets came again. She spoke so gently of death,
the bridge which spans the darkness between us and Heaven--so softened its
dark, dreadful outlines, that it seemed as beautiful as a path of flowers
to the boy and Nanny.

"Death," said Bell one day, "is a folding of the hands to sleep. How quiet
is death! There is no more yearning, no more waiting in the grave. It comes
to me pleasantly, the thought that I shall lie under the daisies, God's
daisies! and the robins will sing over me in the trees. Everything is so
holy in the church-yard--the moss on the walls, the willows, and the long
grass that moves in the wind!"

Poor Nanny tried to hum one of her old ditties about Cloe and her lover;
then suddenly she found something interesting at the window. But it would
not do. The tears would come, and she knelt down by Bell's side, and
Bell's little hand fell like a strip of white moonlight on Nanny's hair.

"We shall miss you, darling!" sobbed Mortimer.

"At first, won't you?" and Bell smiled, and who knows what sights she saw
in the illumined fire-place? Were they pictures of Heaven, little Bell?

"What shall I read