ook
no pleasure in them. A village was growing up round her; but the
new-comers, in whom she would once have felt a lively interest, now
flitted by her like the shadows in a magic-lantern. "Poor woman!" said
the old settlers to the new ones. "She is not what she was. She is
heart-broken."

Eight years more passed away, and Mrs. Wharton, always feeble, but never
complaining, continued to perform a share of household work, with a
pensive resignation which excited tenderness in her family and inspired
even strangers with pitying deference. Her heartstrings had not broken,
but they gradually withered and dried up, under the blighting influence
of this life-long sorrow. It was mild October weather, when she lay down
to rise no more. Emma had outgrown the trundle-bed, and no one occupied
it; but it remained in the old place. When they led her into the bedroom
for the last time, she asked them to draw it out, that she might look
upon Willie's pillow once more. Memories of her fair boy sleeping there
in the moonlight came into her soul with the vividness of reality.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she seemed to be occupied with inward
prayer. At a signal from her, the husband and brother lifted her
tenderly, and placed her in the bed, which Aunt Mary had prepared. The
New Testament was brought, and Mr. Wharton read the fourteenth chapter
of John. As they closed the book, she said faintly, "Sing, 'I'm going
home.'" It was a Methodist hymn, learned in her youth, and had always
been a favorite with her. The two families had often sung it together on
Sabbath days, exciting the wonderment of the birds in the stillness of
the prairie. They now sang it with peculiar depth of feeling; and as
the clear treble of Aunt Mary's voice, and the sweet childlike tones of
Emma, followed and hovered over the clear, strong tenor of Uncle George,
and the deep bass of Mr. Wharton, the invalid smiled serenely, while her
attenuated hand moved to the measure of the music.

She slept much on that and the following day, and seemed unconscious of
all around her. On the third day, her watchful husband noticed that her
countenance lighted up suddenly, like a landscape when clouds pass from
the sun.

This was followed by a smile expressive of deep inward joy. He stooped
down and whispered,--

"What is it, dear?"

She looked up, with eyes full of interior light, and said,--

"Our Willie!"

She spoke in tones stronger than they had heard from her for