pon him, he is my rock, and my stay. No
earthly friend could go with me 'through the valley and shadow of
death,' but Christ can go with me, and open wide the gates of heaven,
and usher my willing spirit into the presence of the happy throng that
worship before the throne of God."

It was a dreary day in mid-winter. The wind howled in fitful gusts,
and the falling snow was piled in huge drifts before it. Annie, pale
and laboring for breath, was bolstered up, in bed, for the angel
of death was visiting the poor girl. His icy fingers were upon her
fluttering pulses, and the feeble current of life stood still.

"O," said she, "the winds, in their wild fury, seem singing praises to
God. My heart is so attuned to praise, that all things seem to unite
in the universal hymn of thanksgiving to our Saviour and our God. O,
Ellen, is there no music in those words, to your young heart? And,
mother, does it not come to you, in your declining age, and bid your
wearied spirit seek that rest that remains for the people of God?"

She ceased to speak: the breath became shorter and shorter, till it
only came with convulsive gasps. She once again opened her weary eyes,
looked earnestly upon the face of her mother and her sister, then
glancing round the apartment, seemed as though she were bidding a last
adieu to all it contained--then closing them forever upon earthly
things, without a struggle or a groan, the spirit of Annie Somers
passed gently away.

The storm continued its violence, and desolate indeed, was the cottage
home of the mother and the sister, where lay the lifeless form of
Annie, reposing in the long deep sleep of death.

It was Sabbath day--a stormy Sabbath day, when the coffin of Annie was
borne upon the shoulders of four men to its last resting place.

It was covered with a neat black velvet pall, at each corner of which
hung suspended a heavy black silk tassel, which waved in the wind as
it came careering on, in fitful gusts, one blast scattering a shower
of snow upon the velvet pall, and the next, sweeping it away, and so
they laid her in her grave, amid the howling of the wintry storm; but
it disturbed not her repose.

Willie and Matilda sleep upon the banks of the Sandy river. The
father's grave was made upon the banks of the far off Mississippi, and
Annie rests by the side of the winding Androscoggin; her mother, too,
is by her side; for she soon followed to the land of shadows.

Ellen has entered upon the r