, as of one of old, 'She hath done what she could.'"

From that time she sank rapidly, sleeping lightly, waking occasionally
with a child-like smile, then lapsing again into unconsciousness.

One evening as the day was fading she awoke from a long sleep and looked
intently into the faces gathered about her. Her pastor, who had known
her through all the years of her sorrow, was beside her. Bending over
her and looking into the eyes now dimmed by the approaching shadows, he
said,--

"You have not much longer to wait, my dear sister."

With a significant gesture she pointed to the fading light.

"'Until the day break,'" she murmured, with difficulty.

He was quick to catch her meaning and bowed his head in token that he
understood; then, raising his hand above her head, as though in
benediction, in broken tones he slowly pronounced the words,--

"'Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself:
for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy
mourning shall be ended.'"

Her face brightened; a seraphic smile burst forth, irradiating every
feature with a light which never faded, for, with a look of loving
farewell into the faces of husband and son, she sank into a sleep from
which she did not wake, and when, as the day was breaking over the
eastern hill-tops, her soul took flight, the smile still lingered,
deepening into such perfect peace as is seldom seen on mortal faces.

As Darrell, a few moments later, stood at the window, watching the stars
paling one by one in the light of the coming dawn, a bit of verse with
which he had been familiar years before, but which he had not recalled
until then, recurred to him with peculiar force:

"A soul passed out on its way toward Heaven
As soon as the word of release was given;
And the trail of the meteor swept around
The lovely form of the homeward-bound.
Glimmering, shimmering, there on high,
The stars grew dim as one passed them by;
And the earth was never again so bright,
For a soul had slipped from its place that night."

After Mrs. Britton's death, deprived of her companionship and of the
numberless little ministrations to her comfort in which they had
delighted, both Mr. Britton and Darrell found life strangely empty. They
also missed the strenuous western life to which they had been
accustomed, with its ceaseless demands upon both muscle and brain. The
life around them seemed narrow and restricted; the ver