ear, that told of love that would
not forget, that would twine in perennial garlands round her grave. Poor
little Helen, as she looked at her pale, agonized face, and saw the
_terror_ imprinted there, she remembered what she had once said to Miss
Thusa, of being after death an object of _terror_ to her child, and she
felt a sting that no language could express. She longed to stretch out
her feeble arms, to fold them round this child of her prayers and fears,
to carry her with her down the dark valley her feet were treading, to
save her from trials a nature like hers was so ill-fitted to sustain.
She looked from her to Mittie, the cold, insensible Mittie, whose large,
black eyes, serious, but not sad, were riveted upon her through the
white fringe of the curtain, and another sting sharper still went
through her heart.

"Oh! my child," she would have said, could her thoughts have found
utterance, "forget me if you will--mourn not for me, the mother who bore
you--but be kind, be loving to your little sister, more young and
helpless than yourself. You are strong and fearless--she is a timid,
trembling, clinging dove. Oh! be gentle to her, for my sake, gentle as I
have ever been to you. And you, too, my child, the time will come when
you will _feel_, when your heart will awake from its sleep--and if you
only feel for yourself, you will be wretched."

"Why art thou cast down, oh! my soul? and why art thou disquieted within
me?" were the meditations of the dying woman, when turning from earth,
she raised her soul on high. "I leave my children in the hands of a
heavenly Father, as well as a mighty God--in the care of Him who died
that man might live forevermore."

But there was one present at this scene, who seemed a priestess
presiding over some mystic rite. It was Miss Thusa. Notwithstanding the
real kindness of her heart, she felt a strange and intense delight in
witnessing the last struggle between vitality and death, in gazing on
the marble, soulless features, from which life had departed, and
composing the icy limbs for the garniture of the grave. She would have
averted suffering and death, if she could, from all, but since every son
and daughter of Adam were doomed to bear them, she wanted the privilege
of beholding the conflict, and gazing on the ruins. She would sit up
night after night, regardless of fatigue, to watch by the pillow of
sickness and pain, and yet she felt an unaccountable sensation of
disappointment