ate summer and the early autumn passed, and she lay, in
her pale beauty, upon a couch of pain. The world, this busy, struggling,
toilsome world, seemed slipping from her grasp, and heaven was very near
to her. Her tired feet had borne her to the very brink of the dark
river, whose waters chanted their solemn requiem, as the child had told
her in his dream. She longed to follow him, and sometimes, in her
delirium, would cry out his name suddenly, with every endearing accent.
It seemed almost as if the words of the boy had been prophetic, and his
strange dream was thus to be fulfilled.

He lay now in the very spot that his childish eyes had sought longingly,
and one who remembered him came daily to place the beautiful flowers he
had loved in life above his grave. Poor little Ruth! her days passed
sadly enough. Her only friend might soon be taken from her. Her all was
centred in the slight, attenuated form, that lay tossing restlessly upon
what might be her death-bed. The little patient watcher grew each day
paler as hope died out, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the
elder woman, she only left Clemence's bedside for her daily walk to the
graveyard.

Ulrica Hardyng cared for the two who had been so strangely committed to
her care, as though they had been the sisters God had denied her. She
hung over the sufferer, administering her medicine, and allowing none
but the doctor and the hired nurse to approach her.

"There shall be none of these rude creatures about you, my darling," she
would say determinedly; "they have done you harm enough already."

She despised these people, as was natural, from her very nature, which
was generous, but given to strong likes and dislikes, and their
treatment of the orphan girl had brought upon them her lasting contempt.
She had also before had a specimen of their tender mercies, and was
fully aware of the adverse judgment that had been passed upon her own
actions upon her advent among them. She thought, therefore, that little
good could be got from associating with any of them, though, like a real
lady, she took care to be always civil and polite to every one.

When the news of Clemence's dangerous illness was spread throughout the
town, there were many to grieve for the sweet-faced stranger, who had so
lately come among them, and there were some to wonder what would become
of her if she should linger along without finally recovering her health.

"Poor child," said Mrs. Wynn, b