ill lie down and
die, too; for I cannot return without her."

Creeping slowly in, with suppressed breath and trembling limbs, she
discovered something white lying on the bed of moss, so still and white,
that it might have been mistaken in the dimness for a snow-drift, were
it not a midsummer eve. All the old superstitions implanted in her
infant mind by Miss Thusa's terrific legends, seized upon her
imagination. Any thing white and still, reminded her of the
never-to-be-forgotten moment when she gazed upon her dead mother, and
sunk overpowered by the terror and majesty of death. If it was Alice
lying there, she must be dead, and how could she approach nearer and
encounter that _cold presence_ which had once communicated a death-chill
to her young life? Then the thought of Alice's death was fraught with
such anguish, it carried her out of herself. The grief of Arthur, the
agony of his mother; it was too terrible to think of. Springing into the
arbor, she ran up to the white object, and kneeling down, beheld the
fair, clustering ringlets and rosy cheek of Alice dimly defined through
the growing shadows. She inhaled her warm breath as she stooped over
her, and knew it was sleep, not death, that bound her to the spot. As
she came in contact with life, warm, breathing vitality, an
instantaneous conviction of the folly, the preposterousness of her own
fears, came over her. Alice calmly and quietly had fallen asleep as
night came on, not knowing it by its darkness, but its stillness. Helen
felt the presence of invisible angels round the slumbering Alice, and
her fears melted away. Putting her arms softly round her, and laying
her cheek to hers, she called upon her to wake and return, for the
woods were getting dark with night.

"Oh! how I love to sleep on this soft, mossy bed," cried Alice, sitting
up and passing her fingers over her eyes. "I fell asleep on brother's
arm, with the waterfall singing in my ears. Where is he, Helen? I do not
hear his voice."

"He is at home, and sent me after you, Alice," replied Helen. "How could
he leave you alone?" she could not help adding.

"I am never afraid to be left alone," said Alice, "and he knows it. But
I am not alone. I hear some one breathing in the grotto besides you,
Helen. I heard it when I first waked."

Helen started and grasped the hand of Alice closer and closer in her
own. Looking wildly round the grotto, she beheld a dark figure crouching
in the corner, half-hidden b