ust be; more than we can conceive, or she, who looked
through 'Gates Ajar,' can imagine. I do not quite like to look through
her eyes. I suppose my mother is there. How little I ever think of
her--wonder if she watches me from above; O my mother, my mother in
Heaven, have pity upon your child!"

A noise from the adjoining room startled her. Had the cat gained
entrance to her sleeping child? She went in hurriedly; Johnny was in
spasms.

She seized him in her arms, and ran screaming for Mary into the kitchen.
Mary ran for the physician, and the distracted mother, still holding the
convulsed child in her arms, walked up and down the verandah, shouting
for help.

Doctors and neighbors came. All that medical skill and friendly sympathy
could suggest was done; but all in vain. When the spasm subsided, the
eye was uprolled in unconsciousness, and the face burned with the
fiercest fever. Then would come the fearful convulsion, and you would
not know the beautiful face so racked and tortured. Again the demon
would die out; but reason returned not from his relaxing hold. What a
scene was there! All had been set in order a brief while before. Now,
again, everywhere was confusion. There lay upon the floor the little
cast-off garments. The child had done with them. His rocking-horse stood
in the corner, his whip and gun near by, his box of marbles, his
countless broken toys and the sled he had never used. The last time he
had been to drive with his parents, he had seen that sled inside a
store. He insisted upon having it.

"But there is no snow to slide upon," objected his father.

"Johnny no slide--Johnny have 'ittle ocken (oxen) draw sled."

So the sled was purchased, packed into the carriage, and that night
little Johnny had wished to sit up all night to admire his treasure.

"These bufully flowers, mamma, see," pointing to the upper surface and
sides of the nosegay, facetiously termed. At length sleep overtook him,
lying under the table side by side with the gaily-painted sled, one
chubby hand grasping the forward rung. The next day the sled had lost
its charms, for Johnny was ill; and the next--alas, here was little
Johnny! We might speak of Althea's bewildered grief; but why should a
mother's hand attempt to write, or a mother desire to read what only a
mother's heart can understand, and but imperfectly express?

CHAPTER XXIII.

HUBERT LISLE AT VINE COTTAGE.

It was all over, the death and burial of little