little, but there is nothing painful or uneasy in
her wanderings.

Her fair white body lies upon the bed, but by the smile that kindles all
the dying loveliness of her face, by the happy broken words that fall
from her sweet mouth, we know that she is already away in heaven. Now
and again her lips part as if to laugh--a laugh of pure pleasantness.

"As the man lives, so shall he die!" As Barbara has lived, so does she
die--meekly, unselfishly--with a great patience, and an absolute peace.
O wise man! O philosophers! who would take from us--who have all but
taken from us--our Blessed Land, the land over whose borders our
Barbara, at that smile, seems setting her feet--you _may_ be right--I,
for one, know not! I am weary of your pros and cons! But when you take
it away, for God's sake give us something better instead!

Who, while they kneel, with the faint hand of their life's life in
theirs, can be satisfied with the _probability_ of meeting again? God!
God! give us _certainty_.

The night has all but waned, the dawn has come. God has sent his
messenger for Barbara. An awful hunger to hear her voice once more
seizes me, _masters_ me. I rise from my knees, and lean over her.

"Barbara!" I say, in a strangling agony of tears, "you are not _afraid_,
are you?"

_Afraid!_ She has all but forgotten our speech--she, who is hovering on
the confines of that other world, where our speech is needed not, but
she just repeats my word, "_Afraid!_"

Her voice is but a whisper now, but in all her look there is such an
utter, tender, joyful disdain, as leaves no room for misgiving.

Nay, friends, our Barbara is not at all afraid. She never was reckoned
one of the bravest of us--never--timorous rather! Often we have laughed
at her easy fears, we bolder ones. But which of us, I pray you, could go
with such valiant cheer to meet the one prime terror of the nations as
she is doing?

And it comes to pass that, about the time of the sun-rising, Barbara
goes.

"She is gone! God bless her!" Roger says, with low and reverent
tenderness, stooping over our dead lily, and, putting his arm round me,
tries to lead me away. But I shake him off, and laugh out loud.

"Are you _mad_?" I cry, "she is _not_ dead! She is no more dead than
_you_ are! Only a moment ago, she was speaking to me! Do dead people
speak?"

But rave and cry as I may, she _is_ dead. In smiling and sweetly
speaking, even while yet I said "She is here!" yea, in that very