nderly,
and said, "Don't cry, dear."

Azalia was not weeping,--there were no tears in her eyes. God had not
wiped them all away, but the great and sudden affliction was like the
heat of a fiery furnace. It had dried the fountains. Though her mother
and Daphne were so kind and tender, they could not take away her
heart-ache. It was a weary day. She sat by the window and gazed upon the
wheat-fields, brown and bare, for it was almost October, and the reapers
had gathered the grain. Beyond the fields was the river, shrunk to a
narrow bed by the heats of summer. Dead leaves were floating down the
stream. Like the _Miserere_ which the choir chanted at the funeral of a
sweet young girl before Paul went to the army, was the murmuring of the
water. Beyond the river were green meadows and gardens and orchards,
where dahlias were blooming, and grapes and apples ripening in the
mellow sunshine. She thought of Paul as having passed over the river,
and as walking in the vineyard of the Lord. The summer flowers which she
had planted in her own garden were faded, the stalks were dry, and the
leaves withered. They never would bloom again. Like them, the brightness
of her life had passed away.

Night brought no relief. It seemed as if her heart would break, but she
remembered what Jesus said: "Come unto me and I will give you rest." She
told Him all her grief, asked Him to help her, inasmuch as He was able
to bear the sorrows of all the world. So confiding in Him, she
experienced indescribable peace of mind.

Then in the evening they who walked along the street stopped and
listened by the gate to hear the music which floated out through the
open window, bowing their heads, and in silence wiping away their tears.
It was the music of the "Messiah," which Handel composed. She sung it in
church one Sunday before Paul went to the army, and Father Surplice said
it set him to thinking about the music of heaven; but now to the passers
in the street it was as if Jesus called them, so sweet and tender was
the song.

It was consoling to take from her bureau the letters which Paul had
written, and read again what she had read many times,--to look upon the
laurel-leaf which he plucked in the woods at Donelson, the
locust-blossoms which he gathered at Shiloh, the moss-rose which grew in
a garden at Vicksburg,--to read his noble and manly words of his
determination to do his duty in all things.

"Life is worth nothing," read one of the letters, "