'Oh, darling, I shall never forget that day! I arrived home late at night,
or rather early in the morning, worn out with the evening's entertainment.
I had been much praised for the way I had performed my part, and some of
the company had declared I should make a first-rate actress, and I thought
to myself that they little knew how soon I was to become one. As I drove
home, I felt in a perfect whirl of excitement. The day had come at last.
Was I glad? I hardly knew--I tried to think I was; but somehow I felt sick
at heart; I could not shake that feeling off, and as I walked upstairs, I
felt perfectly miserable.

'My mother had gone to bed; and I never saw her again! Lucy was fast
asleep, lying with her hand under her cheek, sleeping peacefully. I stood a
minute or two looking at her. Her little Bible was lying beside her, for
she had been reading it the last thing before she went to sleep. Oh,
Rosalie, I would have given anything to change places with Lucy then! But
it was too late now; Augustus was to meet me outside the house, and we were
to be married at a church in the town that very morning. Our names had been
posted up in the register office some weeks before.

'I turned away from Lucy, and began putting some things together to take
with me, and I hid them under the bed, lest Lucy should wake and see them.
It was no use going to bed, for I had not got home from the theatricals
till three o'clock, and in two hours Augustus would come. So I scribbled a
little note to my mother, telling her that when she received it I should be
married, and that I would call and see her in a few days. Then I put out
the light, lest it should wake my sister, and sat waiting in the dark. And,
Rosie dear, that star--the same star that I had seen that night when I was
a little girl, and had told that lie--that same star came and looked in at
the window. And again it seemed to me like the eye of God.