perceived that some of these children loved her.

Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when the
tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed between
the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great love.

Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart warm
at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old man,
before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay a
murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.

Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the huge
bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?

The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold his
attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads of the
people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the kitchen.

Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together and
sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully passed
by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women. Only two
interested him--Zadok, with whom he had already made a superficial
acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed girl with a
resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck him as
possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl to know
and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he forgot
everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman had
entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the rooms
and upon every heart there present.

"_I am the resurrection and the life_."

Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they rang
above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she had
reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of the
tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young women;
the awful fate impending over its