ugh her
soul.

"Father!" rang her outcry.

The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.

She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
death.

But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no
fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.

CHAPTER XLVII

Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day. It
is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived, and her
flickering life was the sole light of the household; at times burying its
members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a prolonged farewell
than a gladsome restoration.

She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design
to save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught. As
far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings
from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often
clung, always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if it
had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last
quickening verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one
grasped the broken phial with its hideous label.

It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had no
dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if there
is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would
necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all
human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has
lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a
slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a
calamity having changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when
dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: "Goin'
on better--eh, marm?"

"Oh! Mas' Gammon," Mrs. Sumfit burst out; "if I was only certain you said
your prayers faithful every night!" The observation was apparently taken
by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her bosom,
for he did not reply to it.

She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the pati