d and mused, He had ceased to
be an image and a picture of the distant past, and come to be a living,
all-surrounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart with more
than mortal tenderness; and it was to Him, she said, she was going, and
to his home.

But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she was to leave
behind. Her father most,--for Eva, though she never distinctly thought
so, had an instinctive perception that she was more in his heart than
any other. She loved her mother because she was so loving a creature,
and all the selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and
perplexed her; for she had a child's implicit trust that her mother
could not do wrong. There was something about her that Eva never could
make out; and she always smoothed it over with thinking that, after all,
it was mamma, and she loved her very dearly indeed.

She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was as
daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize; but Eva was
an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she had witnessed of the
evils of the system under which they were living had fallen, one by
one, into the depths of her thoughtful, pondering heart. She had vague
longings to do something for them,--to bless and save not only them,
but all in their condition,--longings that contrasted sadly with the
feebleness of her little frame.

"Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, "I
can understand why Jesus _wanted_ to die for us."

"Why, Miss Eva?"

"Because I've felt so, too."

"What is it Miss Eva?--I don't understand."

"I can't tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat,
you know, when you came up and I,--some had lost their mothers, and some
their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children--and
when I heard about poor Prue,--oh, wasn't that dreadful!--and a great
many other times, I've felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying
could stop all this misery. _I would_ die for them, Tom, if I could,"
said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.

Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her father's
voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as he looked after
her.

"It's jest no use tryin' to keep Miss Eva here," he said to Mammy, whom
he met a moment after. "She's got the Lord's mark in her forehead."

"Ah, yes, yes," said Mammy, raising her hands; "I've allers said so.