very
night, Miss Feely,--and I couldn't sleep out o' hearin, no ways."

"Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you think so?"

"Miss Eva, she talks to me. The Lord, he sends his messenger in the
soul. I must be thar, Miss Feely; for when that ar blessed child goes
into the kingdom, they'll open the door so wide, we'll all get a look in
at the glory, Miss Feely."

"Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say she felt more unwell than usual tonight?"

"No; but she telled me, this morning, she was coming nearer,--thar's
them that tells it to the child, Miss Feely. It's the angels,--'it's
the trumpet sound afore the break o' day,'" said Tom, quoting from a
favorite hymn.

This dialogue passed between Miss Ophelia and Tom, between ten and
eleven, one evening, after her arrangements had all been made for the
night, when, on going to bolt her outer door, she found Tom stretched
along by it, in the outer verandah.

She was not nervous or impressible; but the solemn, heart-felt manner
struck her. Eva had been unusually bright and cheerful, that afternoon,
and had sat raised in her bed, and looked over all her little trinkets
and precious things, and designated the friends to whom she would
have them given; and her manner was more animated, and her voice more
natural, than they had known it for weeks. Her father had been in, in
the evening, and had said that Eva appeared more like her former self
than ever she had done since her sickness; and when he kissed her for
the night, he said to Miss Ophelia,--"Cousin, we may keep her with us,
after all; she is certainly better;" and he had retired with a lighter
heart in his bosom than he had had there for weeks.

But at midnight,--strange, mystic hour!--when the veil between the frail
present and the eternal future grows thin,--then came the messenger!

There was a sound in that chamber, first of one who stepped quickly. It
was Miss Ophelia, who had resolved to sit up all night with her
little charge, and who, at the turn of the night, had discerned what
experienced nurses significantly call "a change." The outer door was
quickly opened, and Tom, who was watching outside, was on the alert, in
a moment.

"Go for the doctor, Tom! lose not a moment," said Miss Ophelia; and,
stepping across the room, she rapped at St. Clare's door.

"Cousin," she said, "I wish you would come."

Those words fell on his heart like clods upon a coffin. Why did they?
He was up and in the room in an instant, and bending over