--five,--six,--seven,--

It was not the little child which had been lying so long at the point of
death; that could not be more than three or four years old--

--eight,--nine,--ten,--and so on to
fifteen,--sixteen,--seventeen,--eighteen----

The pulsations seemed to keep on,--but it was the brain, and not the
bell, that was throbbing now.

"Elsie's dead!" was the exclamation at a hundred firesides.

"Eighteen year old," said old Widow Peake, rising from her chair.
"Eighteen year ago I laid two gold eagles on her mother's eyes,--he
wouldn't have anything but gold touch her eyelids,--and now Elsie's to
be straightened,--the Lord have mercy on her poor sinful soul!"

Dudley Venner prayed that night that he might be forgiven, if he had
failed in any act of duty or kindness to this unfortunate child of his,
now freed from all the woes born with her and so long poisoning her
soul. He thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had been
granted her, for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these last
days, and for the hope of meeting her with that other lost friend in a
better world.

Helen mingled a few broken thanks and petitions with her tears: thanks
that she had been permitted to share the last days and hours of this
poor sister in sorrow; petitions that the grief of bereavement might be