said she felt better, and on such days she sat up on her couch,
conversed with us and told us curious stories. I do not know how old
she was at that time. She was so helpless that she seemed like a
child, and yet was so serious and silent that she could not have been
one. When people alluded to her they involuntarily spoke gently and
softly. They called her "the angel," and I never heard anything said
of her that was not good and lovely. Often when I saw her lying so
silent and helpless, and thought that she would never walk again in
life, that there was for her neither work nor joy, that they would
carry her here and there upon her couch until they laid her upon her
eternal bed of rest, I asked myself why she had been sent into this
world, when she could have rested so gently on the bosom of the angels
and they could have borne her through the air on their white wings, as
I had seen in some sacred pictures. Again I felt as if I must take a
part of her burden, so that she need not carry it alone, but we with
her. I could not tell her all this for I knew it was not proper. I
had an indefinable feeling. It was not a desire to embrace her. No
one could have done that, for it would have wronged her. It seemed to
me as if I could pray from the very bottom of my heart that she might
be released from her burden.

One warm spring day she was brought into our room. She looked
exceedingly pale; but her eyes were deeper and brighter than ever, and
she sat upon her couch and called us to her. "It is my birth-day,"
said she, "and I was confirmed early this morning. Now, it is
possible," she continued as she looked upon her father with a smile,
"that God may soon call me to him, although I would gladly remain with
you much longer. But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should
not wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of
you, which you must now place upon the fore-finger. As you grow older