" she would sob; but there was no answer out of the silence.

Who has not tasted the bitterness of these moments, when the craving for
the loved presence seems insupportable, hardly to be borne? How our poor
human hearts rebel against the unnatural separation, until the thrilling
words make themselves heard: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the
living." Oh, yes, of the living! Cease, then, to mourn, poor soul, as
one without hope. Somewhere, not here, but in the larger room of a
purified existence, your beloved one lives, breathes, nay, thinks of
thee. Be comforted; one day we shall meet them, and the friendship of
time will become the love of eternity.

Bessie strove hard not to be selfish in her grief. Her mother's
strength, never very great, had broken down utterly for a time. Bessie
knew that this failure of power added to her father's anxiety, and in
the most touching manner she tried to console them both. When she looked
back at these sad days, Bessie owned that she had been marvellously
helped and supported. With the day's burden had come daily strength to
bear it.

"I must not think of myself; I must think of father and mother," she
would say, as she awoke in the morning with that blank sense of loss.
"There is nothing to do for Hatty now, but there are others who need
me." And this thought helped her through the day.

In that busy household there was no time to sit alone and brood. A quiet
walk now and then, and that half hour in Hatty's room, was all Bessie
could conscientiously spare. If she stayed away for an hour, Christine
complained of dullness, and her mother looked sadder on her return.
Ella and Katie, too, made constant demands on her time and patience.
Christine was very unlike Bessie in temperament. She was a pretty,
bright girl, warm-hearted and high-spirited, but she did not possess
Bessie's contented nature. Christine often found her quiet life irksome.
She was inquisitive, restless, eager to see the world. She had
insatiable curiosity; a love of change, her small girlish ambitions. She
wanted to plume her wings a little--to try them in flights hither and
thither. The gay world seemed to her ignorance a land flowing with milk
and honey. She had yet to spell the meaning of the words illusion and
vanity. Bessie was fond of Christine. She loved all her sisters dearly,
but there was less sympathy between them than there had been between
herself and Hatty.

Hatty, in spite of her morbid humo