_my_ trouble be over?"

"When Mas'r St. Clare's a Christian," said Tom.

"And you really mean to stay by till that day comes?" said St. Clare,
half smiling, as he turned from the window, and laid his hand on Tom's
shoulder. "Ah, Tom, you soft, silly boy! I won't keep you till that day.
Go home to your wife and children, and give my love to all."

"I 's faith to believe that day will come," said Tom, earnestly, and
with tears in his eyes; "the Lord has a work for Mas'r."

"A work, hey?" said St. Clare, "well, now, Tom, give me your views on
what sort of a work it is;--let's hear."

"Why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the Lord; and Mas'r St.
Clare, that has larnin, and riches, and friends,--how much he might do
for the Lord!"

"Tom, you seem to think the Lord needs a great deal done for him," said
St. Clare, smiling.

"We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs," said Tom.

"Good theology, Tom; better than Dr. B. preaches, I dare swear," said
St. Clare.

The conversation was here interrupted by the announcement of some
visitors.

Marie St. Clare felt the loss of Eva as deeply as she could feel
anything; and, as she was a woman that had a great faculty of making
everybody unhappy when she was, her immediate attendants had still
stronger reason to regret the loss of their young mistress, whose
winning ways and gentle intercessions had so often been a shield to them
from the tyrannical and selfish exactions of her mother. Poor old Mammy,
in particular, whose heart, severed from all natural domestic ties, had
consoled itself with this one beautiful being, was almost heart-broken.
She cried day and night, and was, from excess of sorrow, less skilful
and alert in her ministrations of her mistress than usual, which drew
down a constant storm of invectives on her defenceless head.

Miss Ophelia felt the loss; but, in her good and honest heart, it bore
fruit unto everlasting life. She was more softened, more gentle; and,
though equally assiduous in every duty, it was with a chastened and
quiet air, as one who communed with her own heart not in vain. She was
more diligent in teaching Topsy,--taught her mainly from the Bible,--did
not any longer shrink from her touch, or manifest an ill-repressed
disgust, because she felt none. She viewed her now through the softened
medium that Eva's hand had first held before her eyes, and saw in her
only an immortal creature, whom God had sent to be led by her t