in sunlight and moonlight, became the sweet face that had been always
pale; and the voice that had been always something mournful, breathed
lower and sadder still from the too perfect whiteness of her breast. No
need--no fear---to tell her thai she was about to die! Sweet whispers
had sung it to her in her sleep, and waking she knew it in the look of
the piteous skies. But she spoke not to her parents of death more than
she had often done--and never of her own. Only she seemed to love them
with a more exceeding love--and was readier, even sometimes when no one
was speaking, with a few drops of tears. Sometimes she disappeared--nor,
when sought for, was found in the woods about the hut. And one day that
mystery was cleared; for a shepherd saw her sitting by herself on a
grassy mound in a nook of the small, solitary kirkyard, miles off among
the hills, so lost in reading the Bible, that shadow or sound of his
feet awoke her not; and, ignorant of his presence, she knelt down and
prayed--for awhile weeping bitterly--but soon comforted by a heavenly
calm--that her sins might be forgiven her!

One Sabbath evening, soon after, as she was sitting beside her parents,
at the door of their hut, looking first for a long while on their faces,
and then for a long while on the sky, though it was not yet the stated
hour of worship, she suddenly knelt down, and leaning on their knees,
with hands clasped more fervently than her wont, she broke forth into
tremulous singing of that hymn, which from her lips they now never heard
without unendurable tears.

"The hour of my departure's come,
I hear the voice that calls me home;
At last, O Lord! let trouble cease,
And let thy servant die in peace."