maintained. Nurse was gliding about as only nurses can, in the noiseless movements of a dream. Suddenly Kate's fearful cry of, "Oh, mamma!" came crashing agonisingly on the stillness. She had lost her self-command, and with it, for the moment, all thought for others. Florence was no longer there, and Kate looked only on the forsaken prison-house, for sleep had been in league with death. Yes! there lay Florence, beautiful as sculptured marble; and Mrs Pemberton bent over the cold form, scarcely less cold herself, under the paralysing influence of consternation and grief.

We live in a world of death. It meets us on every side, in the closed shutters of the stately house we recognise it; in the pauper's lowly but touching funeral we see it passing by; we read of it in the columns of every newspaper; and discern its shadow in the crowd by the robe of mourning. And yet let the dark visitant but take his place by our own hearth, and we tremble and are astonished.

Yet, by some invisible power, Kate is drawn out from the terror of her anguish.

That spirit, in rising, had let fall a ray of happiness, which lingered round those pale lips,-not, indeed, in a smile, but in an expression of peace, so unlike all earthly repose whatever, that both mother and daughter felt its sanctifying influence, and, whilst gazing on it, they seemed brought so near to the portals of the land where sorrow is no more, that for a few moments their tears were stayed :—

"Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
An angel visited the earth,
And took its flowers away."

CHAPTER XXX.

LONDON.

POOR KATE! The demonstration of her sorrow was at first very violent; her heart panted and fluttered in its anguish, and she sobbed till, from downright fatigue, she fell asleep. She lay on the sofa in utter exhaustion, moveless till evening. It was well for Kate that sleep got sorrow in its grasp; for in spite of herself, and against her very wish, the tumult of her heart was stilled.

When she awoke, another evening was around her, and, just for a moment rising up from the dreamless slumber of exhaustion, the heavy new sorrow was not present to her. Why was she there, and what had evening to do with her waking? She had only to look round on Florence,—on death.

"There, in the twilight cold and grey,

Lifeless but beautiful she lay;"

and then the torrent of her tears flowed forth afresh ; for there is an energy of weeping in youth which does not remain with us when we become more disciplined by life.

There had been no watching and waiting for the postman that morning, but still he had been, and, by one of those strange coincidences of life, the longdesired letter, sought in prayer, and hoped for when hope was weary, at length arrived, and lay unnoticed on the table.

People talk of the luxury of woe, yet this does not belong to the grief itself, but to the leisure with which it may be accompanied; for the bereavement is from its very nature a robber, tearing from the heart the love that had entwined itself with our being, or rather withering the roots, and then leaving the shrivelled branches there, allowing the affection to remain with us, but baffled and paralysed by death.

It is a luxury to have time given us to convince ourselves that the warm present love, at our very side but yesterday, has silently passed on into the land of memory; and yet, as that mother and daughter communed together, this was touchingly acknowledged by the little query which so often made its way into their conversation, "Don't you remember?"

Death had put out anxiety, and the waveless sea of Mrs Pemberton's spirit was more dismal to look on than the tumult of a stormier sorrow.

It was something like despair, and yet after all it could lay no claim to that dark name, for she prayed, and though she did not find her grief grow less, she had something of the feeling of the child who in the gloom has taken hold of her Father's hand; though she was not herself aware of it, a gentle and holy

trust was unfolding on her heart's waters, and from her spirit, if not yet from her lips, rose the gentle breathing of resignation, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

The servants spoke in whispers, and Mr Pemberton's voice was seldom heard at all. The doctor's daily visit, which was continued till after the funeral, was the only interruption to the silence resting on that household, and that was made with noiseless tread, as if the sleep of death could be broken.

Arthur's letter was to Mrs Pemberton, and Kate read it aloud, imperfectly of course, amidst tears and anguish.

He spoke of his narrow escape from sickness, of the detention of the vessel on a foreign shore, and not without interest; but oh! when Arthur dwelt hopefully on his present prospects and cheerily on the future, it was like morning rising joyfully on the sparkling waters, when the storm of the night has left not a wreck of the gallant vessel to meet its gleaming!

He told of a far-off river, as bright and beautiful in its course, but otherwise bearing no comparison with the gentle blue stream of home; of vast plains spreading out before him, broken by knolls and slopes, and dingles and glens, whilst the light and shadow in perpetual undulation on these were rich and beautiful. Beyond, and bounding the prospect with a zone of mingled sublimity and grandeur, were the everlasting hills, rising, like the renewed soul in its hopefulness,

above the mists of earth, and communing with the clear blue of that summer heaven. Some of these mountain chains were braced by forests; others again opened to extensive pasture land, studded by white sheep like pearls, and gemmed by a ruby sunlight, which, struggling through dense wood-shadows ere it fell there, gave an indescribable softness to the scenery, bearing perhaps a comparison to the touch of melancholy on beauty's face.

Arthur did not speak of Florence more than of Kate; but hope, which, like the unseen dew of night, waters all first and early affection, was breathing, though tremblingly, on every line, pervading, perhaps unconsciously to himself, the whole letter.

Oh, could he have looked in on them now, as they sat in that room with death!

Weeks passed on, and the more tranquil sorrow came, which is, perhaps, after all, the most trying,— the heart's noiseless swell when the storm is over.

The everyday duties of life surrounded Mrs Pemberton, not its cares; for her great grief in its darkness made all smaller shadows invisible. She would sometimes spend a whole morning in looking over the books that Florence had marked and read, or sit with the deserted work-box open before her, as if the little piece of unfinished embroidery brought her nearer to the departed one.

And those quiet hours were rich in the silent dew of blessing. In her great sense of loss, she thought of Him to whom her child had gone, and though she