ld see no possible way. In this unhappy mood he retired
at an earlier hour than usual, but could not sleep for a long
time--his thoughts were too unquiet. At last, however, he sunk into
a deep slumber.

When again conscious, the sun was shining in at the window. His wife
had already risen. He got up, dressed himself, and went down stairs.
Breakfast was already on the table, and his happy little household
assembling. But after all were seated, Mr. Bancroft noticed a vacant
place.

"Where is Flora?" he asked.

A shade passed over the brow of his wife.

"Flora has been quite ill all night," she replied; "I was up with
her for two or three hours."

"Indeed! what is the matter?"

Mr. Bancroft felt a sudden strange alarm take hold of his heart.

"I can't tell," returned the mother. "She has a high fever, and
complains of sore throat."

"Scarlet fever?" ejaculated Mr. Bancroft, pushing aside his untasted
cup of coffee and rising from the table. "I must have the doctor
here immediately. It is raging all around us."

The father hurried from the room, and went in great haste for the
family physician, who promised to make his first call that morning
at his house.

When Mr. Bancroft came home from the bank in the afternoon, he found
Flora extremely ill, with every indication of the dreadful disease
he named in the morning. A couple of days reduced doubt to
certainty. It was a case of scarlatina of the worst type. Speedily
did it run its fatal course, and in less than a week from the time
she was attacked, Flora was forever free from all mortal agonies.

This was a terrible blow to the father. It broke him completely
down. The mother bore her sad bereavement with the calmness of a
Christian, yet not without the keenest suffering.

But the visitation did not stop here. Death rarely lays his
withering hand upon one household flower without touching another,
and causing it to droop, wither, and fall to the ground. So it was
in this case. William, the manly, intelligent, promising boy, upon
whom the father had ever looked with love and pride so evenly
balanced, that the preponderance of neither became apparent, was
taken with the same fatal disease and survived his sister only two
weeks.

The death of Flora bowed Mr. Bancroft to the ground: that of William
completely prostrated him. He remembered, too distinctly, how often
and how recently he had murmured at the good gift of children sent
him by God, and now he trembl