The mildest herald by our fate allotted--
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand,
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the Land of the great departed,--
Into the Silent Land."

When the solemn silence that hung like a pall over the parsonage was
broken by the hurried tread of many feet and the confused sound of
strange voices, Regina seemed to be aroused from some horrible
lethargy, and gazed despairingly at the doctor.

"It is too late. You can't do anything for him now," she said,
clinging to his feet, as an attempt was made to lift them from her
lap.

"He must have been dead several hours," answered Dr. Melville.

"None but God and the angels know when he died. I thought he had gone
to sleep; and so indeed he had."

Hannah had spread the alarm, while searching for the doctor, and very
soon Mr. Hargrove's personal friends and some of the members of the
congregation thronged the library, into which the body of the
minister had been removed.

An hour afterward Dr. Melville, having searched for the girl all over
the house, found her crouched on the steps leading down to the flower
garden. She sat with her arm around Hero's neck, and her head bowed
against him. Seating himself beside her, the physician said:

"Poor child, this is an awful ordeal for you, and in Dr. Hargrove's
death you have lost a friend whom the whole world cannot replace. He
was the noblest man, the purest Christian, I ever knew, and if the
church has a hundred pastors in future, none will ever equal him. He
married me, he baptized my children, and when I buried my wife, his
voice brought me the most comfort, the----"

His tone faltered, and a brief silence ensued.

"Regina, I wish you would tell me as nearly as you can how he seemed
to-day, and how it all happened. I could get nothing satisfactory put
of old Hannah."

She described the occurrences of the morning, his debility and entire
lack of appetite, and the long walk in the afternoon, followed by the
attack of vertigo and palpitation, to which he alluded after his
return. When she concluded her recital of the last terrible scene in
the melancholy drama, Dr. Melville sighed, and said:

"It has ended just as I feared, and predicted. His heart has been
affected for some time, and not a month ago I urged him to give up
his pulpit work for a while at least, and try rest and change of air.
But he answered that he considered his work imp