e ever uttered. I believe I shall think of them just before I
die, and tell you about them in heaven. Kiss me again, please, and then
I will go. I feel better now."

Clemence drew the child again into a close embrace, and then, releasing
him, waited at a turn in the winding path, until he was out of sight.

It was about the same hour, nearly a week after, that Clemence was
walking alone, musing upon her own unhappy fate, when, startled by a
rustling of the branches near her, she turned, to behold little Johnny
Brier rushing hastily past, without looking to one side or the other,
and following the path that opened upon the margin of the lake.

A strange fear took possession of Clemence. She called several times,
"Johnny!" authoritatively, but the child sped on, unheeding. The girl
grew faint and dizzy, and though she turned to follow in the direction
in which he had gone, her limbs refused to support her, and she sank
down, nearly in a state of insensibility.

Footsteps again aroused her, and she started up with a feeling of hope
animating her to renewed effort. A moment after, Mrs. Brier appeared
upon the scene furious with rage, and flourishing in her right hand a
large whip.

A look of guilty fear overspread her face, as she beheld Clemence's
agitation.

"Have you seen Johnny?" she asked, breathlessly, Clemence pointed,
without a word, toward the water. An awful look of terror leaped into
the woman's eyes, and she turned and rushed frantically away.

When the girl could gain strength, she went after her, and there, at the
water's edge, a crowd of people were collected, uttering ejaculations of
horror over the lifeless remains of the child she had a few moments
before beheld in all the agony of the wildest despair.

A woman turned from the crowd as Clemence approached. "He ran away," she
said, "and I suppose came down here to play, and fell into the lake.
It's no fault of mine. I've warned him often enough to keep away, and
now he has only received the reward of all disobedient children."

Clemence strove to speak, and brand this woman as a murderess, in the
sight of God, but the words died on her lips, and she fell down, where
she stood, as lifeless as the still figure before them.

There had now happened to Clemence Graystone, that which, it seemed, in
her forlorn situation, was the worst that fate could inflict upon her;
her health failed entirely. She grew; sick, even "unto death." The long
days of the l