way of Zion; and Theophil was smoking cigarette after cigarette. He was
terribly clear-headed and bright-witted, and Mr. Moggridge looked at him
sometimes with a sort of fear.

It was about three in the morning when the door was softly opened by
Mrs. Talbot.

"Will you come now, and see our little girl?" she said, with a voice
that could say no more.

Theophil followed her, and, still in a dream, he stood in Jenny's room,
grown strangely solemn and sweet since he was last there,--was it a
thousand years ago? And there was Jenny lying asleep with a wonderful
smile on her face. She had a little gold chain round her neck and a
white crysanthemum in the bosom of her night-gown, and you thought of
some princess lying in enchanted sleep in an Arabian night. It seemed so
light a sleep and yet somehow so eternal. You stept softly, you spoke
low, lest you should awaken her--not carelessly shall one disturb that
imperious slumber.

Yes, the distinction of death sat like an invisible crown upon Jenny's
brow. She was no longer little Jenny, but a mysterious princess upon
whose sleep it was permitted thus to gaze. The pain which had filled
these weeks with bitter human anguish had been the process of some
mysterious ennoblement. She had been found "worthy to die." In the
peerage of God's creatures, she had now outsoared those whom she loved.
The nature of it was a mystery, but no one could look on her face and
doubt that a great honour had come to little Jenny.

But, O Jenny, may it be your gain indeed, for the loss to us is greater