high above the grinding ice, it seemed a hazardous bridge. As we stood
looking over at the new mill, listening to the slight stir within it,
apparently the setting to rights by some lingering workman of such odds
and ends as remain after finishing the great whole of such a building,
suddenly the cool wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its
waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer
it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my
arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. Waring's
plaid cap pass an open casement. She turned upon me like a wild creature
driven to bay. I looked up-stream;--the ice had gathered in one high
barrier mixed with flood-wood and timber, and, bearing above all the
uprooted trunk of a huge sycamore, was coming down upon the dam like a
battering-ram. Jo gasped. "The river is broken up and Arthur is on the
island," said she, in a fearfully suppressed tone, and, swifter than I
could think or guess her meaning, she had reached the timber, she was on
it,--and with light, untrembling steps half across, when both she and I
simultaneously caught sight of Mr. Waring running for dear life to the
other and stronger bridge. Jo turned to come back; but the excitement was
past that had sustained her; she trembled, she tottered. I ran to meet and
aid her. Just then the roots of the great sycamore thundered against the
dam; the already heavily pressed structure gave way; with the freed roar
of a hurricane, the barrier, the dam, the foot-bridge swept down toward
us. She had all but reached the end of the timber,--I stood there to grasp
her hand,--when the old tree, whirled down by the torrent, struck the
other end of the beam and threw Josephine forward to the bank, dashing her
throbbing, panting breast, with all the force of her fall, against the
hard ground. I lifted her in my arms. She was white with pain. Presently
she opened her eyes and looked up, a flush of rapture glowed all over her
face, and then the awful mist of death, gray and rigid, veiled it. Her
head dropped on my shoulder; a sharp cry and a rush of scarlet blood
passed her lips together; the head lay more heavily,--she was dead. But
Arthur Waring never knew how or for what she died!

Five years have passed since that day. Still I live at Nook Cottage; but
not alone. Of us three, Josephine is in heaven. Letty is still troubled
upon earth; her husband tests her p