imbs as tenderly as though it
had been a living, breathing form.

"Oh, Elsie! Elsie! dear, _dear_ little Elsie!" cried Adelaide, flinging
herself upon the bed, and pressing her lips to the cold cheek. "I have
only just learned to know your value, and now you are taken from me.
Oh! Elsie, darling, precious one; oh! that I had sooner learned your
worth! that I had done more to make your short life happy!"

Chloe was sobbing at the foot of the bed, "Oh! my child! my child! Oh!
now dis ole heart will break for sure!" while the kind-hearted physician
stood wiping his eyes and sighing deeply.

"Her poor father!" exclaimed Mrs. Travilla at length.

"Yes, yes, I will go to him," said Adelaide quickly. "I promised to call
him the moment she waked, and _now_--oh, _now_, I must tell him she will
never wake again."

"No!" replied Mrs. Travilla, "rather tell him that she has waked in
heaven, and is even now singing the song of the redeemed."

Adelaide turned to Elsie's writing-desk, and taking from it the packet
which the child had directed to be given to her father as soon as she was
gone, she carried it to him.

Her low knock was instantly followed by the opening of the door, for he
had been awaiting her coming in torturing suspense.

She could not look at him, but hastily thrusting the packet into his
hand, turned weeping away.

He well understood the meaning of her silence and her tears, and with a
groan of anguish that Adelaide never could forget, he shut and locked
himself in again; while she hurried to her room to indulge her grief in
solitude, leaving Mrs. Travilla and Chloe to attend to the last sad
offices of love to the dear remains of the little departed one.

The news had quickly spread through the house, and sobs and bitter
weeping were heard in every part of it; for Elsie had been dearly loved
by all.

Chloe was assisting Mrs. Travilla.

Suddenly the lady paused in her work, saying, in an agitated tone,
"Quick! quick! Aunt Chloe, throw open that shutter wide. I thought I felt
a little warmth about the heart, and--yes! yes! I was not mistaken; there
_is_ a slight quivering of the eyelid. Go, Chloe! call the doctor! she
may live yet!"

The doctor was only in the room below, and in a moment was at the
bedside, doing all that could be done to fan into a flame that little
spark of life.

And they were successful. In a few moments those eyes, which they had
thought closed forever to all the beauties of ear