rsuaded now and then to leave him to spend an afternoon at the
pleasant Rectory, when the Rector's kind wife sent for her, to amuse a
sickly little daughter, who was very fond of her, and in whom Ruth's
health, strength, and cheery spirit excited a pathetic wonder and
delight.

It was the burial of this child, poor little Lilly Kingsley, which Ruth
and her grandfather were beholding from the shadowy church-porch on
that lovely June morning. Mr. Mason stood with his head bowed,
intently listening to the solemn burial service, and reverently
wondering at the providence of God, which had passed by him, so old,
feeble, and almost useless, and taken from the good Rector and his wife
their one only darling.

Ruth had wept bitterly over the body of her little friend, as she had
seen it that morning, in the coffin, almost covered with white flowers,
and nearly as white as they; but now she watched the mournful
ceremonies with a rapt and eager interest, too profound for tears. Her
young spirit was struggling with the mystery of death, and thoughts of
immortality. She knew that the wasted little body let down into the
dark grave was not all of her poor playmate, and she strove to picture
a little angel like Lilly, only blooming, and happy, and free from
pain, borne upwards through the still summer night, by tender angels,
who looked back very pityingly on the grieving parents, bending over
the death-bed of their risen darling.

So lost was the child in these thoughts, that she did not speak nor
move till the service was over, and the weeping group that had stood by
the grave had passed out of the churchyard.

A few days after this funeral, little Ruth coming home from school,
found the Rector in earnest conversation with her grandfather. She
courtesied timidly to the clergyman, but he drew her to his knee,
looked kindly into her beautiful dark eyes, and said, "How would Ruth
like to live always at the Rectory, and fill the place of our little
lost daughter?"

Ruth's sweet face flushed with delight, and she answered, "O, sir, I
should dearly love such a beautiful home, and _you_ would too, would
n't you, grandpapa?"

The Rector looked at Mr. Mason, and the old man, drawing the child to
him, said tenderly, "My dear little girl, your old grandfather cannot
leave this cottage, in which he was born, and in which he has always
lived, until he goes to his long home."

"Then _I'll_ not go," cried Ruth, impulsively flinging h