this, "He is asleep! He is asleep!" Yet

was not that unnameable dread seizing again on her heart? No! oh, no! And why could she not bend forward and look at the dear face?

It was nearly an hour before the doctor was brought by the maid, who had a key and opened the cottage door without requiring from within the assistance of Miss Aveley. She, erect, immoveable, and conscious of things external only in connexion with the one thought, started with a sharp thrill of pain through her nerves at the opening of the door. "They will disturb him," she murmured.

The doctor had not passed through the parlour door when, glancing at Mr. Aveley's face, he exclaimed, "Dead! My God, already! And he called at my house this morning!"

The prisoner is filled with fear and grief when his sentence is pronounced by the judge, after he has, for a long time, been tortured

by the alternation of mind caused by his trial. But were the judge to pronounce

3

sentence on him without those formalities which he had expected, not fear, nor grief, but incredulity would take possession of his thoughts. So it was with Harriet Aveley, when her father was snatched from her without the previous warning of a long illness, such as she had anticipated when she had allowed herself to look forward at all to their separation on earth. A strange smile played on her lips at the doctor's words, and, far from replying to them by any expostulation, she eagerly asked what had best be done for her father.

He shook his head, but taking out his instruments proposed to try bleeding. Vain attempt! Yet still the daughter stood with fixed, unbelieving eye. "Miss Aveley, all is over! Nothing can be done," he said.

The words seemed to convey to her no impression of the sense in which he meant them to be understood. At length, to try to

bring conviction, he drew her nearer, and placed in her hands the hands of the dead. But she knew not what death was-she had never seen it before-and its coldness had no terror for her yet. She kissed the beloved hands and pressed them to her bosom, trying to restore their warmth, calmly bidding the gaping servant-maid stir the fire and make it burn brightly.

The doctor became alarmed lest her reason might be affected by the sudden calamity which had befallen her, and he conjectured that to see her father lying dead in his bed would make her loss not so inconceivable as it now was. He induced her to leave the room under pretext of preparing something for Mr. Aveley, and, with the help of the maid, he accomplished his purpose. Then he led Harriet to the little bedroom. plan was successful; when he again said, "All is over!" and pointed to the still, extended form. She sank on her knees beside the bed, and, burying her face in the

His

coverlid, wept as she had never wept beforeas one without hope.

The doctor, satisfied when he beheld this natural course of things, repeated a few common-places and took his leave, promising to see her in the morning and give her what assistance he could about the funeral.

The funeral! That word she heard at least, if she had heard no other that he uttered.

It would be too painful to dwell on six sad nights and days spent by Harriet Aveley in watching, praying, weeping, and pacing to and fro beside the bed on which the body of her father lay. In those nights and days, thoughts, deep and solemn on life, on that strength of affection which is given us, and by which we are so severely tried, pressed on her as they had never done before, although she had not been unused to serious reflection. But he was still there-it was as if he shared in all her thoughts-as if there were yet communion between them; and it was only

when the grave closed upon him that she felt, in its full force, that they no longer lived for each other.

Not by tens of hundreds, but by tens of thousands, are those to be numbered who have returned, with eyes weary of the light, with souls longing for death, to a home become a void and an emptiness after they have first looked on the grave of their best beloved. But of all on whom that doom has fallen, not one has stretched forth the hand into the vacancy, and startled the silence by a sob, with a sense of loneliness more oppressive than that which weighed on Harriet Aveley. She did not know that she had a relative in the land of her birth, and she was not sure that she had one friend. Nothing but common and distant civilities had passed between Mr. Aveley and two or three of his neighbours-such civilities as were due to

the

parson and his wife, and the medical man and his. On John Hardy, the tanner, Benjamin's uncle, he had also called, but had