Petronella had always been somewhat shadowy and wan, had always
been slight and slim and small. But was she always as wan and
slight as she now seemed? or did he observe it the more from the
contrast it presented to Cherry's blooming beauty, to which his
eyes had grown used? He asked the question anxiously of himself,
but could not answer it.

Then drawing Petronella into the full light of the silver moon, he
made her sit beside him on a fragment of mouldering wall, and
holding her thin hands in a warm clasp, he scanned her face with
glances of earnest scrutiny.

"My sister, hast thou been ill?"

She shook her head with a pathetic little smile.

"Alas, no! Methinks I am a true Trevlyn for that. Sickness passes
me by and seizes upon others who might so much better be spared."

"Why dost thou say 'alas' to that, sweet sister?"

"Verily because there be times when I would so gladly lay down my
head never to lift it more. For me death would be sweeter than
life. The dead rest in God's peaceful keeping--my good aunt at the
Chase has told me so, and I no longer fear the scorching fires of
purgatory. I have a little New Testament now of my own, full of
sweet promises and words of love and peace. When I read of the
pearly gates and the streets of gold, and the city into which
nothing unholy may enter, I long sorely to leave behind this world