forgot that the day was passing off, in
which she was to earn so many bright pennies, in order to bring home the
kind physician who was to make the dear aunt well at once. She went to
the far-off land, and sang of the vineyards and the soft, warm air; of
the gently-moving waters, and the fragrant blossoms around the banks of
the lakes. O, the moon rose up before her, and she drank from its loving
beams; the stars sent down their misty light, as if shrouded because of
their great beauty! Once in that land, how had she forgotten all things
else! A holy inspiration had come down over her; an angel of light
appeared to her enchanted eyes, beckoning her to rest her head upon his
bosom.

"Fear not!" he said, "for I will yet take you to the lovely gardens
where your mother dwells."

But, when she eagerly stretched out her arms and cried, "Take me now,"
he disappeared, and she found the song stayed upon her lips, the room
hushed, and only the glory, which the angel's presence had shed about,
still lingered there. The holy stillness came into her heart also, and
she sat quietly upon the floor a long time; and when, at last, she rose
and went up to her aunt's bedside, she found the brow she kissed was
cold, the hand she clasped was chilly; and, in looking with fear upon
the aunt's face, she found the dews of death resting there.

The aunt was dead! Those songs, which flowed so easily from Cybele's
lips, had become the requiem of the dead, and those soft tones had been
the last sigh of a passing soul.

Cybele knew that when the angel had over-shadowed her, as she sang, he
had borne hence her aunt's spirit.

But, O, it was so hard to be left all alone! And when the people from
the other room came in and prepared her aunt for the burial; when they
took her from the bed and put her in the rude coffin, the child's heart
felt like breaking, and, had it not been for the words the angel had
spoken to her when he came to bear hence the dear aunt, she would have
wept without ever smiling again.

Then they carried away the coffin into a dismal place, where was neither
green grass nor pleasant brook, nor even a flower, might it be ever so
little; and there was a row of square, black doors against the walls,
one of which they opened, and shoved the coffin into a dark place.

O, it was so dreary a place, with the high fence all about it, and the
cold, dismal, gray clouds above! It did not seem to Cybele that she
could leave the aunt t