nd?"

Harold was a man who never wept--never could weep--but his face grew
pale, and there came over him a great awe. His step faltered, even more
than her own, as he followed Olive up-stairs.

Her hand trembled a moment on the latch of the door. "No," she said, as
if to herself,--"no, it is not my mother; my mother is not here!"

Then she went in composedly, and uncovered the face of the dead; Harold
standing beside her.

Olive was the first to speak. "See," she whispered, "how very placid and
beautiful it looks!--like her and yet unlike. I never for a moment feel
that it is _my mother_."

Harold regarded with amazement the daughter newly orphaned, who stood
serenely beholding her dead. He took Olive's hand, softly and with
reverence, as if there were something sacred in her touch. _His_ she
scarcely seemed to feel, but continued, speaking in the same tranquil
voice:

"Two hours ago we were so happy, she and I, talking together of holy
things, and of the love we had borne each other. And can such love end
with death? Can I believe that one moment--the fleeting of a breath--has
left of _my mother_ only this?"

She turned from the bed, and met Harold's eye--intense, athirst--as if
his soul's life were in her words.

"You are calm--very calm," he murmured. "You stand here, and have no
fear of death."

"No; for I have seen my mother die. Her last breath was on my mouth. I
_felt_ her spirit pass, and I knew that it was passing unto God."

"And you can rejoice?"

"Yes; since for all I lose on earth, heaven--the place of souls, which
we call heaven, whatever or wherever that may be--grows nearer to me. It
will seem the more my home, now I have a mother there."

Harold Gwynne fell on his knees at the bedside, crying out:

"Oh, God! that I could believe!"

CHAPTER XXXIII.

It was again the season of late summer; and Time's soothing shadow had
risen up between the daughter and her grief. The grave in the beautiful
churchyard of Har-bury was bright with many months' growth of grass and
flowers. It never looked dreary--nay, often seemed almost to smile. It
was watered by no tears--it never had been. Those which Olive shed were
only for her own loneliness, and at times she felt that even these were
wrong. Many people, seeing how calm she was, and how, after a season,
she fell into her old pursuits and her kindly duties to all around, used
to say, "Who would have thought that Miss Rothesay would have forgott