thing to forgive except your old disbelief in Gretchen, and
deceiving me about sending the carriage the night Jerrie came; but if
there is anything else, no matter what it is, I do forgive you freely.'

'Thanks,' came faintly from Maude, who whispered:

'It is a vow, remember, made at my death-bed.'

She had done all she could, this little girl, whose life had been so
short, and who, as she once said, had been capable of nothing but loving
and being loved; and now, turning her dim eyes upon Jerrie, who was
parting the damp hair upon her brow, she went on:

'Remember the promise, and the flowers, and the golden seat where you
will find me resting by the flowing river whose shores I am now looking
upon, for I am almost there, almost to the golden seat, and the tree
whose leaves are like emeralds, and where the grass and flowers are like
the flowers and grass of summer just after a rain. I am glad for you,
Jerrie. Good-bye; and you, father dear, good-bye.'

That was the last, for Maude was dead; and the servants, who had been
standing about the door, stole noiselessly back to their work, with wet
eyes and a sense of pain and loss in their hearts, for not one of them
but had loved the gentle girl now gone forever from their midst.

If was Jerrie who led Frank from the room to his own, where she left him
by himself, knowing it would be better so, and it was Arthur who took
Dolly out, for Tom had disappeared, and no one saw him again until the
next day, when he came down to breakfast, with a worn, haggard look upon
his face, which told that he did care, though his mother thought he did
not, and taunted him with his indifference. Poor Tom! He had gone
directly to his room and locked the door, and smoked and smoked, and
thought and thought, and then, when it was dark, he had stolen out into
the park as far as the four pines, and smoked, and looked up at the
stars and wondered if Maude were there with Jack, sitting on the golden
seat by the river. Then going back to the house where no one saw him, he
went into the silent room where Maude was lying, and looked long and
earnestly upon her white, still face, and wondered in a vague kind of
way if she knew he was there, and why he had never thought before what a
nice kind of girl she was, and why he had not made more of her as her
brother.

'Maude,' he whispered, with a lump in his throat, 'if you can hear me,
I'd like to tell you I am sorry that I was ever mean to you, and I