ftly,--

"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look
up. Don't forget God!"

Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him
down. But I don't think he ever forgot God.

A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of
David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting
under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room
for a little while.

"Is she able?" I asked.

"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so
strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke
out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could
take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it,
and she means the sea."

'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged
everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and
thirsted for a good look at the sea."

Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright.

She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with
her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that
moment pass away from us,--that she might, in some beautiful form, a
dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be
lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above.

But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed,
from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never
noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very
pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was
purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that
particular night such a peaceful, placid look.

"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to
different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each.

"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that
it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been
looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same.
I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands
beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the
field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer,
as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before
noise began, to