y
radiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on the skies.

"I'm going _there_," she said, "to the spirits bright, Tom; _I'm going,
before long_."

The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how often
he had noticed, within six months, that Eva's little hands had grown
thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and how,
when she ran or played in the garden, as she once could for hours, she
became soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss Ophelia speak often
of a cough, that all her medicaments could not cure; and even now that
fervent cheek and little hand were burning with hectic fever; and yet
the thought that Eva's words suggested had never come to him till now.

Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their
names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly
eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of
yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all
the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms
of one who _is not_. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels,
whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the
wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in
their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the
eye,--when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser
than the ordinary words of children,--hope not to retain that child; for
the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from
its eyes.

Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou are passing away;
but they that love thee dearest know it not.

The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty call from
Miss Ophelia.

"Eva--Eva!--why, child, the dew is falling; you mustn't be out there!"

Eva and Tom hastened in.

Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing. She was
from New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps of that
soft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so many of the fairest
and loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken, seals them
irrevocably for death.

She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brightening cheek;
nor could the lustre of the eye, and the airy buoyancy born of fever,
deceive her.

She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare; but he threw back
her suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike his