they should lay her; and he had
answered, impatiently, that he cared not.

Adolph and Rosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, fickle and childish,
as they generally were, they were soft-hearted and full of feeling;
and, while Miss Ophelia presided over the general details of order and
neatness, it was their hands that added those soft, poetic touches to
the arrangements, that took from the death-room the grim and ghastly air
which too often marks a New England funeral.

There were still flowers on the shelves,--all white, delicate and
fragrant, with graceful, drooping leaves. Eva's little table, covered
with white, bore on it her favorite vase, with a single white moss
rose-bud in it. The folds of the drapery, the fall of the curtains, had
been arranged and rearranged, by Adolph and Rosa, with that nicety of
eye which characterizes their race. Even now, while St. Clare stood
there thinking, little Rosa tripped softly into the chamber with a
basket of white flowers. She stepped back when she saw St. Clare, and
stopped respectfully; but, seeing that he did not observe her, she came
forward to place them around the dead. St. Clare saw her as in a dream,
while she placed in the small hands a fair cape jessamine, and, with
admirable taste, disposed other flowers around the couch.

The door opened again, and Topsy, her eyes swelled with crying,
appeared, holding something under her apron. Rosa made a quick
forbidding gesture; but she took a step into the room.

"You must go out," said Rosa, in a sharp, positive whisper; "_you_
haven't any business here!"

"O, do let me! I brought a flower,--such a pretty one!" said Topsy,
holding up a half-blown tea rose-bud. "Do let me put just one there."

"Get along!" said Rosa, more decidedly.

"Let her stay!" said St. Clare, suddenly stamping his foot. "She shall
come."

Rosa suddenly retreated, and Topsy came forward and laid her offering at
the feet of the corpse; then suddenly, with a wild and bitter cry,
she threw herself on the floor alongside the bed, and wept, and moaned
aloud.

Miss Ophelia hastened into the room, and tried to raise and silence her;
but in vain.

"O, Miss Eva! oh, Miss Eva! I wish I 's dead, too,--I do!"

There was a piercing wildness in the cry; the blood flushed into St.
Clare's white, marble-like face, and the first tears he had shed since
Eva died stood in his eyes.

"Get up, child," said Miss Ophelia, in a softened voice; "don't cry so.
Mis