appliances were ranged--her night-light and the box of matches, her
Bible and a hymn-book, a tablespoon, a carafe full of water and a
tumbler, and this bottle marked "Cherry-water--one tablespoonful for
a dose." In madame's handwriting underneath stood, "For my troublesome
heart." Only about two tablespoonsful were left.

Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself mechanically
into her hair. No one was about, and the house was profoundly still,
save for the voices coming up from the room below in a subdued and
not unpleasant murmur, with now and then the child's shrill babble
breaking in through the deeper tones like occasional notes in a
sonata. Out of doors were all the pleasant sights and sounds of the
peaceful evening coming on after the labors of the busy day. The birds
were calling to each other in the woods before nesting for the night;
the homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; the
village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they came off
the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun dyed the autumn
leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a richer russet. It was
all so peaceful, all so happy, in this soft mild evening of the late
September--all seemed so full of promise, so eloquent of future joy,
to those who had just begun their new career.

But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment--felt nothing of
its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was half-unconsciously
designing. She saw only, at first dimly, then distinctly, that here
were the means by which mamma's enemy might be punished and swept from
mamma's place, and that if she failed her opportunity now she would be
a traitor and a coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma.
No, she would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the
saints themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner