ell provided for and happy."

"And is it so with death?" asked Ellen.

"Yes," replied her aunt; "when we are well, we love life, and we ought to
love it. It then seems terrible to die. God means that it should seem
terrible to us then. But when sickness comes and we are about to die, then
he changes the feeling. Death seems terrible no more. We become perfectly
willing to die."

Here Mrs. Randon paused, and Ellen remained still, thinking of what she
had heard, but without speaking. After a few minutes her aunt continued.

"I have had a great change in my feelings within a short time, about
dying," said she, "I have always, heretofore, desired to live and to get
well; and it has seemed to me a terrible thing to die;--to leave my
pleasant home, and my husband, and my dear Ellen, and to see them no more.
But somehow or other, lately, all this is changed. I feel now perfectly
willing to die. It does not seem terrible at all. I have been a great
sinner all my days, but I feel sure that my sins are forgiven for Christ's
sake, and that if I die I shall be happy where I go, and that I shall see
my husband and you too there some day."

Ellen laid her head down by the side of her aunt's, with her face to the
pillow and her cheek against her aunt's cheek, but said nothing.

"When I am gone," continued her aunt, "you will go home and live with your
mother again."

"Shall I?" said Ellen, faintly.

"Yes," replied her aunt, "it will be better that you should. You can do a
great deal of good there. You can gradually get the house in order, taking
one thing at a time, and so not only help your mother, but make it more
pleasant and comfortable for your father. You can also teach Annie, and be
a great help to her as she grows up; and you can also perhaps do a great
deal of good to Rodolphus."

"I don't know what I shall do with Rodolphus," said Ellen. "He troubles my
mother very much indeed."

"I know he does," said her aunt, "but then you will soon get a great
influence over him, and it is possible that you will succeed in making him
a good boy."

As Mrs. Randon said this, Ellen heard the sound of a door opening in the
back entry, and a stamping of feet upon the floor, as if some one were
coming in out of the snow.

"There comes Hugh," said Ellen, "and I think there is going to be a
storm."

Signs of a gathering storm had in fact been appearing all that day. For
several days before, the weather had been very clear and col