f you will believe it now,
perhaps you will get to feel about it as I do."

St. Clare closed his lips, and stood gloomily eying the long, beautiful
curls, which, as they were separated from the child's head, were laid,
one by one, in her lap. She raised them up, looked earnestly at them,
twined them around her thin fingers, and looked from time to time,
anxiously at her father.

"It's just what I've been foreboding!" said Marie; "it's just what has
been preying on my health, from day to day, bringing me downward to the
grave, though nobody regards it. I have seen this, long. St. Clare, you
will see, after a while, that I was right."

"Which will afford you great consolation, no doubt!" said St. Clare, in
a dry, bitter tone.

Marie lay back on a lounge, and covered her face with her cambric
handkerchief.

Eva's clear blue eye looked earnestly from one to the other. It was the
calm, comprehending gaze of a soul half loosed from its earthly bonds;
it was evident she saw, felt, and appreciated, the difference between
the two.

She beckoned with her hand to her father. He came and sat down by her.

"Papa, my strength fades away every day, and I know I must go. There are
some things I want to say and do,--that I ought to do; and you are so
unwilling to have me speak a word on this subject. But it must come;
there's no putting it off. Do be willing I should speak now!"

"My child, I _am_ willing!" said St. Clare, covering his eyes with one
hand, and holding up Eva's hand with the other.

"Then, I want to see all our people together. I have some things I
_must_ say to them," said Eva.

"_Well_," said St. Clare, in a tone of dry endurance.

Miss Ophelia despatched a messenger, and soon the whole of the servants
were convened in the room.

Eva lay back on her pillows; her hair hanging loosely about her face,
her crimson cheeks contrasting painfully with the intense whiteness of
her complexion and the thin contour of her limbs and features, and her
large, soul-like eyes fixed earnestly on every one.

The servants were struck with a sudden emotion. The spiritual face, the
long locks of hair cut off and lying by her, her father's averted face,
and Marie's sobs, struck at once upon the feelings of a sensitive and
impressible race; and, as they came in, they looked one on another,
sighed, and shook their heads. There was a deep silence, like that of a
funeral.

Eva raised herself, and looked long and earnestly round