reathed to the kind All Father a prayer for
guidance and strength for what might come to her.

Clemence Graystone's future seemed, for the first time since her
father's sudden death, to hold in it somewhat of happiness for her
portion. The dreary waste had changed to a smiling landscape, that
glowed beneath skies of a roseate hue. There was surely nothing now to
fear. With the love of one powerful to protect her from life's ills,
means to lavish upon the wistful-eyed child who had grown each day
deeper into her affections, and a firm, trusting faith in the guidance
of One who ruleth over the world He has created, a faith that had kept
her from despair in the darkest hour, and made her young life beautiful;
with hope beckoning, with smiling eyes, to the crowning glory of
womanhood, this girl, who had suffered so much from fate, ought to have
been content and happy. But the mysterious shadow of her coming doom
brooded darkly over her.

At length, inspired with a sudden feeling, for which she could hardly
account, Clemence rose, and seated herself at her writing-desk. If she
had been given to spiritual sympathies, she would have said that her
hand was controlled by some unseen power. As it was, there was a look of
awe upon the pallid face that bent to the task, and the girl was whiter
than the paper before her, as she wrote thus:

MY DEAREST FRIEND: Something within me, a strange, mysterious
influence, the whisperings, perhaps, of some angel spirit sent to
call me hence, impels me to write these few words of farewell.

If nothing should happen me, if my life should flow on tranquilly
into the valley of peace that my fond fancy pictured, then I will
keep this to laugh over, as the wild vagaries of an over-wrought,
excited imagination. But, if death should find me at my labor of
love, you will know how irrevocably my heart has been given to you,
and realize somewhat of the depths of that affection which my lips
have never dared to frame. Oh, my darling, had I been permitted to
live, I would have worshipped you; and if God calls me, I will
still hover around you, and be the first to welcome one I loved to
Heaven. All that you have been to the weary-hearted girl, you will
never know. Life seemed hopeless, but your affection has made it a
dream of happiness. I have wanted to tell you how deeply your image
was graven on my heart; how one face that