a solitary candle over a long and
lengthening wick, shedding a dim radiance throughout the room. By the
side of an old-fashioned bedstead, hung with snow-white valance, knelt
the old gray-headed minister, and his low voice, broken and
thrillingly solemn, went up in earnest prayer for a departing soul.
Upon the bed itself, propped up with pillows, lay the invalid. Three
days ago the flush of health had mantled her cheek, and brightened in
her eye, and now, how ghastly and changed she was! The sunken and
mist-covered eye; the pallid cheek; the hueless lips, and painful
breath, too truly testified that the dark angel Azrael was watching by
the couch-side. At the head of the bed sat the daughter, a little girl
apparently five years of age, with her head bent upon her knees, and
her hands clasped beneath her face, weeping bitterly. The supplicating
accents of the gray-haired minister ceased, and he arose from his
kneeling posture, his eyes streaming with tears, and clasping in both
of his the thin white hand that rested upon the snowy counterpane,
leaned gently over, and placed his lips close to the ear of the dying
woman.

"My dear Mrs. Williams," said he kindly, "we all feel that you are
rapidly sinking; do you die happy? Do you feel that there is a Jesus
in heaven, through whose mediation you will be saved?"

There was a rustling of the bed-clothes, a faint murmur, and the
sufferer languidly turned her eyes upon the speaker. A dimness was in
those sunken orbs; a clamminess upon her wan brow, and her breast
heaved wildly beneath the linen that lay in snowy waves across it. But
she did not appear to have heard the inquiry of the minister.

"The Widow White--has she not come yet? It is getting late--quite
late," feebly spoke the sufferer.

Until then Widow White had stood unnoticed in the dark shadow,
unwilling to interrupt; but, hearing this inquiry, she glided to the
bedside.

"Yes, Mrs. Williams, I have come," and she laid her hand upon the dewy
brow of her she had named, and tenderly smoothed back the long hair
that lay loosely upon it.

A gleam of satisfaction shot across the wan countenance of the
sufferer as these words fell upon her ear. A light, almost
preternatural, stole to her eyes, until they sparkled as the diamond,
and she lifted her head upon her hand, and strove to speak. But the
effort was too great for her debilitated condition--a weakness came
over her, and she sunk back exhausted to her pillow. E