begin to love him and to hate and abhor my sins that helped nail him to
the tree." With the last words tears coursed down her cheeks. "I want to
be his, whether I live or die," she added; and from that hour a great
change came over her; her sufferings were borne with patience and
resignation; and when the end came she passed peacefully and quietly
away, leaving her bereaved daughter mourning the separation, but not as
those without hope of a blessed reunion at some future day, in that land
where sin and sorrow, sickness and pain are unknown.




CHAPTER III.


Through all the six long weeks of her mother's illness at Fairview
Evelyn had been a most devoted, tender nurse, scarcely leaving the sick
room for an hour by day or by night. She bore up wonderfully until all
was over and the worn-out body laid to rest in the quiet grave; but then
came the reaction; strength and energy seemed suddenly to forsake her,
and thin, pale, sad, and heavy-eyed, she was but the shadow of her
former self.

Change of air and scene was the doctor's prescription. She was very
reluctant to leave home and friends for a sojourn in new scenes and
among strangers, but receiving an urgent invitation from Captain and
Mrs. Raymond to spend some weeks at Woodburn with her loved friend
Lucilla, and finding that her uncle and aunt--Dr. Conly also--highly
approved, she gladly accepted; all the more so because she had learned
that Grandma Elsie too, whom she loved even better than ever for her