himself to remember and present this well-worn consolation.

"There is no hope; Aunt Betsey's dead!"

"Dear me! that's very sad."

Mr. Fletcher tried not to smile as Christie sobbed out the
old-fashioned name, but a minute afterward there were actually tears
in his eyes, for, as if won by his sympathy, she poured out the
homely little story of Aunt Betsey's life and love, unconsciously
pronouncing the kind old lady's best epitaph in the unaffected grief
that made her broken words so eloquent.

For a minute Mr. Fletcher forgot himself, and felt as he remembered
feeling long ago, when, a warm-hearted boy, he had comforted his
little sister for a lost kitten or a broken doll. It was a new
sensation, therefore interesting and agreeable while it lasted, and
when it vanished, which it speedily did, he sighed, then shrugged
his shoulders and wished "the girl would stop crying like a
water-spout."

"It's hard, but we all have to bear it, you know; and sometimes I
fancy if half the pity we give the dead, who don't need it, was
given to the living, who do, they'd bear their troubles more
comfortably. I know I should," added Mr. Fletcher, returning to his
own afflictions, and vaguely wondering if any one would cry like
that when he departed this life.

Christie minded little what he said, for his voice was pitiful and
it comforted her. She dried her tears, put back her hair, and