rently as he looked up at the darkened window of the chamber of death; and a tear rolled down the strong man's cheek as he thought of the fair young form which lay there, cold and lifeless.

Charlie never forgot the grief of those dark and dreary days. Life seemed to him unutterably dim and dismal now, and he longed for the time when he too might be at rest.

'She always said she would like to die young; but then she knew she was ready,' he said to himself.

Charlie had never seen any one dead before; and he shuddered when he saw the coffin, and turned wildly to his mother.

'You'll not let them put her in there. They must not take her away. Oh! I cannot live without my sister!' 'My boy, my boy! calm yourself; Lucy is in heaven,' said the mother, with white and trembling lips.

It was the evening before the funeral, a bright, calm August evening, with the sun setting in a blaze of glory midst a mass of fleecy, golden clouds. Mrs. Mason went to Lucy's room to take a last look of her darling before she was put into her coffin and taken out of their sight for ever. She looked very fair and beautiful as she lay on the bed in her pure white dress, a stream of rippling, shimmering curls falling in a shining, wavy mass over her breast. Charlie had strewed the bed with flowers, and one snowy blossom lay on

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her bosom, each one an emblem of innocence and purity. And now the boy knelt by the bed, unable to believe that Lucy was not there. She looked so peaceful and happy, just as if she were asleep, that it was hard to believe she was dead.

'If they would always let you lie here, my darling; but they are going to take you away, and I'll never, never see you more!' said Charlie, speaking aloud, and then bursting into a flood of tears. 'Sister mine, come back! Oh, come back, my darling Lucy! Why did you leave us?'

He had not heard his mother enter, and did not know of her presence till she knelt beside him, and drew him towards her.

'Charlie, dear, won't you try to think of Lucy as an angel now? Won't you try to think of her as up in heaven, waiting to welcome us home? And will you pray with me now, that we may meet her above?'

Charlie's sobs became less violent as he listened to his mother; and he folded his hands, and joined very earnestly in her prayer. There was a new link between him and heaven now, and he did wish so much to get there; and as he pressed one long last kiss on his sister's cold white forehead, he resolved to do his very best to try. And he must try and fill her place now: there were so many who would miss her, and he must comfort them, though his own heart was breaking all the

while. Such was Charlie's noble resolve as he bent over his dead sister; and when he pulled back the window curtain, and looked out into the calm, still night, a little star, far away up in the blue heaven above, looked brightly down upon him; and it seemed to the forlorn boy as if one of Lucy's own sweet smiles were beaming upon him, to encourage him and beckon him onwards.

Next day, all that remained of Lucy was carried to its last resting-place. A crowd of children waited at the gate; and as they bore her from the house, they strewed her bier with flowers. It was a sad but lovely strange was it when the

sight; and still more sad and hearse moved away, with its white plumes nodding slowly and solemnly, followed by the mournful train, to hear the wail that rose from the hearts of those little ones that loved her. The farmer could not hide his grief, and he went to the grave sobbing like a child.

'God knows it's hard enough to part with her, and yet we must strive to say, "Thy will be done," were his words as Charlie and he returned to their afflicted home.

And through time Charlie did learn to say⚫ those words from his heart, which seemed so hard at first, and came to envy his sister's happy home in the realms of light; and then he confessed, 'He doeth all things well.'