ing her hand in his, he reverently bowed his head, while the fast-falling tears coursed down his manly cheek. In a voice broken with his deep emotion, he replied: "This precious bequest I receive from your dying hand, mother, shall be more treasured, more tenderly prized, than my own life. Sacredly will I watch over your trust, and as I deal by her so may God deal with me, both here and hereafter.”

A deathly hue overspread the sufferer's face, and for a moment the spirit seemed to have taken its flight, but the responsive "Amen" which trembled on her livid lips, in seal of that solemn pledge, showed that her quickened ear had caught his words.

Thus, as the lengthening shadows of evening crept around the hut, and the last song of day had been hushed to rest, the fluttering spirit still hovered in its mortal abode. The stillness of night hung o'er the mountain darkness gathered around, hiding all its beauty; but no night was there in her soul—no darkness dimmed the radiant glory of the throne on which her gaze was fixed. Almost home! within sight of her promised rest! What wonder that the beatific vision shut out all earthly thoughts?

The weeping ones around her watched with shuddering fear and silent awe the cold shadow of death enshroud her loved form; they saw its mysterious vail draw slowly over her dark eye till its light was hidden in the misty gray; they almost felt the icy touch which marbled her brow and stopped the life-blood in its

course; but her rapt soul, filled with its divine contemplation, scarce heeded the moment when its pinions were loosed.

And thus, in the solemn midnight hour, she passed away! The sighing, moaning winds through the foresttrees, with their wailing, dirge-like notes, chanted forth her requiem; the stars looked down in their quiet beauty upon her cold and lifeless form, as she lay in that calm, sweet sleep. The happy, holy smile with which she entered Paradise still rested on her pale features, as if the ransomed spirit would cast its bright halo back to earth.

"My mother, O my mother!" cried Nellie, throwing herself with wild and passionate grief upon the still bosom of the dead. Alas! how cold and drear come back to the bereaved heart those first unanswered words of love, when the voice whose tones are blended with our earliest memories is silent forever, and the lips where ever dwelt the loving response are mute and motionless to all our wildest appeals. O death! no keener, sharper sorrow canst thou bring than when thou layest the mother low!

Gently drawing her from that cold embrace, Mr. Murray's voice broke upon the stillness, in low, clear tones : "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.' Look up, Nellie, my stricken one; see the heavenly smile with which your sainted mother even now seeks to comfort

and strengthen your heart! how sweetly she rests from her labors! how joyfully she has gone to her reward! Let us not, then, grieve over her happy release, but, strong in that faith which can thus triumph over death, let us strive for the same glorious hope of immortality. Nellie, dearest, lay your sorrowing head upon my breast; henceforth it is your only home-and oh! may I never prove unworthy of that mother's dying trust !”

At the close of day, the hour she loved so well, they laid the fortune-teller to rest in a little green glade, where the wild flowers bloomed in luxuriant beauty, and the bubbling spring murmured ever its low, sweet song, as it sent forth its tiny, vivifying streams. 'Twas a strange and almost weird-like scene, that first burial upon the mountain, when the little funeral train, mingling with the lengthened shadows twilight threw across their rugged path, wound slowly up to the consecrated spot-the rude bier, with its sable pall, borne by rough but loving hands-the sad, solemn faces of kind-hearted neighbors, paying their last tribute to one who had been both feared and loved, and the bowed form of the stricken orphan, whose convulsive sobs echoed mournfully through the still night air, supported with almost reverent fondness by her noble lover. How heartless and formal seem the pomp and pageantry with which the favored sons of fortune are ofttimes consigned to their narrow tomb, compared with simple obsequies ike these! A fervent, heartfelt prayer, wafted upwards

THE MOUNTAIN BURIAL.

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by the free winds of heaven; a few brief words of deepest sympathy, uttered in no cold, constrained tone, but springing with fervid warmth from heart to lip; a last tender farewell to the precious dust committed to its native element, and then, in silence and sadness, they turn away, leaving the quiet sleeper to her long repose. Sweet indeed and undisturbed will be her rest in that lonely mountain grave; summer suns will clothe the little mound with verdant, blooming beauty-winter's fierce winds will howl and shriek above her lowly bed, but no sound save the last great trump shall awake her to life again! Blessed her sleep! thrice blessed her awakening! for the joyful sound shall herald her to eternal joys!

3

CHAPTER XXVI.

"HARD task to cure, with human skill,

Disease of heart and mental ill;

Thought will corrode in spite of reason,

When man to truth and worth plays treason."

MRS. EVERSON returned from her long and wear some journey in no enviable state of mind; at one m ment deeply chagrined that her humiliating suit shoul have met with such a repulse-the next, revolving E ther Cram's strange disclosure with an intuitive convi tion of its truth, for well and bitterly she remembere her husband's devotion to his first and early love, wit all the heartburnings and jealous strifes it had causedand again dwelling with involuntary admiration upo the beautiful girl who had so proudly though respec fully rejected the proffered honor, and picturing to he self the life and joy such a being would bring, even t her stately home. But, as she neared that home, th vision of a pale, wasted face, watching and waiting wit feverish longing for her coming-listening too wit tensed nerve for a step lighter than her own, a forı