upon her bosom, presses cool kisses upon weary, drooping eyelids, and
broods over the slumberer with loving vigils. Under her tender
ministrations our dreams are blessed visions of the "green pastures and
the still waters," and the "shining ones" waiting "beyond the river."

The smiling Spring day faded slowly. Evening came on apace. Under the
moonlit sky a fair-browed girl kept loving vigil. It was sweet Clemence
Graystone. There was a troubled look in the calm eyes. Life's battle had
but just began. They were all alone now. Death had entered their little
circle and robbed them of their dear one. The loving husband and kind
father, who had toiled for them, working day after day, and often far
into the night, to surround his cherished darlings with the elegancies
to which they had been accustomed, had been suddenly taken away, and
"their house was left unto them desolate." They had not even time to
mourn, for, after they had buried their dead out of their sight, the man
of business came and told them in brief, unsympathetic tones that they
must leave the home that had so long sheltered them, for the wealth that
had purchased and made it beautiful, was their's no longer. They were
penniless. It was a cruel blow. Mrs. Graystone sank helplessly under
it, and the delicately reared daughter had all the burden thrown upon
her young shoulders. And nobly did she bear it. Clemence Graystone, with
her bright, radiant face, had seemed to her fond father like a sunbeam
gilding that stately home, and warming into living beauty what else
would have been only cold magnificence. To her mother, deprived of every
other earthly comfort, she became a ministering angel. She forgot her
own trials: she did not mourn that she had lost the privileges of
society to which their former wealth entitled them: and her beautiful
lips curled in contempt, as one by one, those who had once professed the
warmest friendship, passed her with a cool nod or haughty stare.
Clemence had learned now how to value these summer friends, who