Scriptures, rose but a little higher, the child almost held his dying
breath to listen; if a snowdrift swept by the cottage, with a sound like
the trailing of a garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some visitant
should enter.

But, after a little time, he relinquished whatever secret hope had
agitated him, and, with one low, complaining whisper, turned his cheek
upon the pillow. He then addressed Dorothy with his usual sweetness, and
besought her to draw near him; she did so, and Ilbrahim took her hand in
both of his, grasping it with a gentle pressure, as if to assure himself
that he retained it. At intervals, and without disturbing the repose of
his countenance, a very faint trembling passed over him from head to
foot, as if a mild but somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him, and
made him shiver. As the boy thus led her by the hand, in his quiet
progress over the borders of eternity, Dorothy almost imagined that she
could discern the near, though dim delightfulness of the home he was
about to reach; she would not have enticed the little wanderer back,
though she bemoaned herself that she must leave him and return. But just
when Ilbrahim's feet were pressing on the soil of Paradise, he heard a
voice behind him, and it recalled him a few, few paces of the weary path
which he had travelled. As Dorothy looked upon his features, she
perceived that their placid expression was again disturbed; her own
thoughts had been so wrapped in him, that all sounds of the storm, and
of human speech, were lost to her; but when Catharine's shriek pierced
through the room, the boy strove to raise himself.

"Friend, she is come! Open unto her!" cried he.

In a moment, his mother was kneeling by the bedside; she drew Ilbrahim
to her bosom, and he nestled there, with no violence of joy, but
contentedly, as if he were hushing himself to sleep. He looked into her
face, and, reading its agony, said, with feeble earnestness, "Mourn not,
dearest mother. I am happy now." And with these words, the gentle boy
was dead.

* * * * *

The king's mandate to stay the New England persecutors was effectual in
preventing further martyrdoms; but the colonial authorities, trusting in
the remoteness of their situation, and perhaps in the supposed
instability of the royal government, shortly renewed their severities in
all other respects. Catharine's fanaticism had become wilder by the
sundering of all human ties; and where