Aunt Winifred and I were over at the parsonage to-night, when she roused a little from her stupor and recognised us. She spoke to her husband, and kissed me good-bye, and asked for the children. They were playing softly in the next room; we sent for them, and they came in,—the four unconscious, motherless little things,—with the sunlight in their hair. The bitterness of death came into her marred face at sight of them, and she raised her hands to Auntie—to the only other mother there—with a sudden helpless cry:—"I could bear it, I could bear it, if it weren't for them. Without any mother all their lives,—such little things,—and to go away where I can't do a single thing for them!"

Aunt Winifred stooped down and spoke low, but decidedly. "You will do for them. God knows all about it. He will not send you away from them. You shall be just as much their mother, every day of their lives, as you have been here. Perhaps there is something to do for them which you never could have done here. He sees. He loves them. He loves you."

If I could paint, I might paint the look that struck through and through that woman's dying face; but words cannot touch it. If I were Annt Winifred, I should bless God on my knees to-night for having shown me how to give such ease to a soul in death.