sh.
"Oh, think why--"

"Nay, Flora, do not, do not speak as if that should exclude peace
or hope!" said Dr. May entreatingly. "Besides, it was no wilful
neglect--you had other duties--"

"You don't know me, papa," said Flora, drawing her hands away from him,
and tightly clenching them in one another, as thoughts far too terrible
for words swept over her.

"If I do not, the most Merciful Father does," said Dr. May. Flora sat
for a minute or two, her hands locked together round her knees, her head
bowed down, her lips compressed. Her father was so far satisfied that
the bodily dangers he had dreaded were averted; but the agony of mind
was far more terrible, especially in one who expressed so little, and in
whom it seemed, as it were, pent up.

"Papa!" said Flora presently, with a resolution of tone as if she would
prevent resistance; "I must see her!"

"You shall, my dear," said the doctor at once; and she seemed grateful
not to be opposed, speaking more gently, as she said, "May it be
now--while there is no daylight?"

"If you wish it," said Dr. May.

The dawn, and a yellow waning moon, gave sufficient light for moving
about, and Flora gained her feet; but she was weak and trembling, and
needed the support of her father's arm, though hardly conscious of
receiving it, as she mounted the same stairs, that she had so often
lightly ascended in the like doubtful morning light; for never, after
any party, had she omitted her visit to the nursery.

The door was locked, and she looked piteously at her father as her weak
push met the resistance, and he was somewhat slow in turning the key
with his left hand. The whitewashed, slightly furnished room reflected
the light, and the moonbeams showed the window-frame in pale and dim
shades on the blinds, the dewy air breathed in coolly from the park,
and there was a calm solemnity in the atmosphere--no light, no watcher
present to tend the babe. Little Leonora needed such no more; she was
with the Keeper, who shall neither slumber nor sleep.

So it thrilled across her grandfather, as he saw the little cradle
drawn into the middle of the room, and, on the coverlet, some pure white
rosebuds and lilies of the valley, gathered in the morning by Mary
and Blanche, little guessing the use that Meta would make of them ere
nightfall.

The mother sank on her knees, her hands clasped over her breast, and
rocking herself to and fro uneasily, with a low, irrepressible moaning.

"Will