um, and a pathetic little note detailing the reasons for her
suicide.

For awhile all was very still. The bending branches of the trees
stirred, and fanned the still, white face, the dew kissed it; the light,
airy wings of the summer insects brushed it in flying; the winds
caressed it with the sweet odors of clover and daisies, and the waters
murmured by with a soothing song, all alike unheeded by the beautiful,
silent sleeper.

"Softly!
She is lying with her lips apart;
Softly!
She is dying of a broken heart!

"Whisper!
She is going to her final rest;
Whisper!
Life is growing dim within her breast!"

Suddenly the sultry darkness was broken by a flash of lightning,
followed by a low rumble of thunder. Swift rain-drops flashed down
through the leaves upon that still, white face, and a summer storm broke
in startling fury on the heated earth, drenching the motionless form
with a steady downpour of water.

The wind howled through the trees, breaking and twisting branches,
tossing leaves about like feathers, and swelling the little creek to a
brawling stream.

All the while the blue sheets of lightning lighted up the sky with
splendor, and gleamed through the tossing tree-branches down on the
fair, quiet face seemingly locked in death's awful repose. For half an
hour the war of the elements raged, then ceased as suddenly as it had
begun, and the last faint gleam of lightning showed a startling change.

The lips of Dainty Chase were parted in long, gasping breaths; the blue
eyes were dilated in a blank and straining gaze. She rose slowly,
staggeringly, to her feet, and as the black clouds parted overhead, and
the full moon glimmered through, flooding the wet earth with splendor,
as though diamonds strewed every blade of grass, she stepped, slowly,
falteringly, down to the road, dragging her drenched body along
aimlessly toward the open country that lay beyond.

It would seem as if a miracle had been wrought, giving back life to the
dead.

But Dainty's draught of laudanum had been too small to induce death, and
the wholesome bath of rain and the electric elements abroad in the air
had combined to rouse her from a stupor that might otherwise have
terminated fatally. Life--feeble, and faltering, yet still life--stole
back along her veins to her numb heart, and set it beating again.

With a strength almost incredible after the terrible week she had
endured, she wandered sl