ght bore more heavily on Libbie's arm,
and without sigh or sound she fell an unconscious heap on the piled-up
gravel. They helped Libbie to bring her round; but long after her
half-opened eyes and altered breathing showed that her senses were
restored, she lay, speechless and motionless, without attempting to rise
from her strange bed, as if the earth contained nothing worth even that
trifling exertion.

At last Libbie and she left that holy, consecrated spot, and bent
their steps back to the only place more consecrated still; where he had
rendered up his spirit; and where memories of him haunted each common,
rude piece of furniture that their eyes fell upon. As the woman of the
house opened the door, she pulled Libbie on one side, and said--

"Anne Dixon has been across to see you; she wants to have a word with
you."

"I cannot go now," replied Libbie, as she pushed hastily along, in order
to enter the room (_his_ room), at the same time with the childless
mother: for, as she had anticipated, the sight of that empty spot, the
glance at the uncurtained open window, letting in the fresh air, and the
broad, rejoicing light of day, where all had so long been darkened and
subdued, unlocked the waters of the fountain, and long and shrill were
the cries for her boy that the poor woman uttered.

"Oh! dear Mrs. Hall," said Libbie, herself drenched in tears, "do not
take on so badly; I'm sure it would grieve _him_ sore if he were alive,
and you know he is--Bible tells us so; and may be he's here watching how
we go on without him, and hoping we don't fret over much."

Mrs. Hall's sobs grew worse and more hysterical.

"Oh! listen," said Libbie, once more struggling against her own increasing
agitation. "Listen! there's Peter chirping as he always does when he's
put about, frightened like; and you know he that's gone could never
abide to hear the canary chirp in that shrill way."

Margaret Hall did check herself, and curb her expressions of agony,
in order not to frighten the little creature he had loved; and as her
outward grief subsided, Libbie took up the large old Bible, which fell
open at the never-failing comfort of the fourteenth chapter of St.
John's Gospel.

How often these large family Bibles do open at that chapter! as if,
unused in more joyous and prosperous times, the soul went home to its
words of loving sympathy when weary and sorrowful, just as the little
child seeks the tender comfort of its mother in all