tion by some intense anxiety or sudden calamity. Even though the immediate misfortune may be averted, there is a sensation of instability given to everything here below -especially in the minds of the very young -which does not depart with the cause that it birth. This was the case with Alice

gave

Gray even now.

And a change was coming over Evesham rectory, though not as she anticipated. Even as Mr. Gray gained strength day by day, it now became evident that his gentle Alice, the sweet flower of Evesham, was losing it. The shock of hearing of her father's illness in her absence, and the subsequent intense anxiety she suffered, though bravely borne at the time, no doubt hastened the progress of incipient disease. The least sudden noise or alarm now brought on nervous palpitations of the heart; and a faintness Alice was seized with one day without any apparent cause, alarmed Mr. Gray extremely. However, it passed off, and Alice appeared to rally from the time Mr. Gray first was able to go out again.

"Look at her, then !" said old Dame Dorothy, as in the centre of a little group of cot

"Frail as she

tagers she watched Alice tenderly supporting her father from the church, the first time he had been able to enter it again. is, see how she supports him! in truth then she's the stay hand."

In deed and of his right

"Ay, and the stay and comfort of us all!" said Willie Marsden's mother, with a sigh, "but she gets thinner and thinner, and paler and paler; sure it will not be God's will to take her away from us all, good as she is!"

"Speak respectfully of God's will, woman!" replied Dame Dorothy, sternly. "Sure then His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts! May be it would be a punishment to such as her to keep her long away from the angels!" And Dame Dorothy hobbled off home, muttering as she went, a fragment of an old Scotch song:

"She's ga'en to dwell in heav'n, my lassie!

She's ga'en to dwell in heav'n;

Ye're owre pure quo' the voice of God,

For dwelling out o' heav'n.

“O what'll she do in heav'n, my lassie ?

O what'll she do in heav'n?

She'll mix her ain thoughts wi' angels' songs,

And make them mair meet for heav'n!"

CHAPTER X.

Softly part away the tresses

From her forehead of pale clay,

And across her quiet bosom

Let her pale hands lightly lay;

Never idle in her lifetime

Were they folded thus away.

"You who watch'd with me beside her,
As her last of nights went by,
Know how calmly she assured us
That her hour was drawing nigh.
How she told us, sweetly smiling,
She was glad that she could die.

66

Stilling then, with one last effort,
All her weakness and her woe,
She seem'd wrapt in pleasant visions,
But to wait her time to go;
For she never after midnight
Spoke of anything below;

"But kept murm'ring, very softly,

Of cool streams and pleasant bowers,
Of a path going up brightly,

Where the fields were white with flowers,
And at day-break she had enter'd

On a better life than ours!"

ANON.

A MONTH had elapsed after my last chapter closes. It was the end of September, Alice Gray and her father were sitting again in the study at Evesham, but this time it was Alice who was reclining in an invalid chair, and her father was sitting watching her with depths of resignation and sorrow in his earnest eyes. Alice's illness had gradually increased, attacks of faintness and palpitation had become more frequent, and it became evident to all that her strength was gradually sinking. Mr. Gray, in an agony of suspense and terror, after learning the opinion of the Evesham doctor, awaited the

arrival of one of the most eminent London physicians; but he only confirmed the sad tidings, and for a few days Mr. Gray's anguish may be better conceived than expressed.

He had succeeded, however, now by God's help, and after a tremendous struggle, in conquering these; aided mainly by the calm cheerfulness with which Alice spoke of her own state; which she had guessed for some weeks, but which after the London doctor's visit, Mr. Elton had clearly revealed to her. In spite of those earthly regrets which would occur at the approaching parting from her loved ones left behind, Alice's humble, tranquil joy, in the bright hopes of so soon realizing all her holiest, happiest visions, was so real, so simple, so full of faith, that Mr. Gray felt almost already in the presence of an angel; and would have thought it wrong to disturb her peace,by expressing his own selfish grief. Calmly therefore did father and daughter together look forward on the approaching separation which their Almighty Father summoned them to bear; and so they "sorrowed not as those who had no hope.'