Throughout this conversation the footfall of the old grandmother
was heard distinctly on the chamber floor above, for on reaching
her room she did not, as was her wont, seek at once the shelter of
her bed, but, placing the lamp on the table, commenced a fond and
farewell survey of the old chamber. Over the fireplace hung an old
sampler, worked by her deft fingers in girlhood's days--her maiden
name spelt out in now faded silks, with a tree of paradise on
either side and under it the date of a forgotten year; while an
old leather-cased Bible, in which were inscribed the epochs of the
family, lay open upon a chair.

Withdrawing her eyes from these, she slowly turned towards the
clothes-press, and, opening the oaken doors, looked at a suit of
black--'the Sunday best' of her dead husband, left undisturbed
since his sudden decease ten years before. Then, turning to a box
at the foot of the bed--that historic four-poster whereon the twin
messengers of birth and death had so often waited--she knelt and
raised the lid, looking into its secrets by the feeble ray emitted
from the lamp. What she saw therein we care not to tell. Our pen
shall not blur the bloom of that romance and association which for
her the years could not destroy. Enough that this was her ark,
within which were relics as precious as the budding rod and pot of
manna. She was low before her holy of holies--face to face with a
light which falls from the inalienable shrine of every woman who
has been wife and mother, who has loved a husband and carried a
child.

By this time the storm was over, and the winds, lately so
tempestuous, were gathered together and slept. A strange hush--a