t on those steps with dear
Winnie, and hadn't little May spoken kindly to her, and kissed baby,
too? It recalled her sister to her so vividly that the tears would not
be stayed, and she let them flow. Just then the door opened, causing her
to look up; there was a black crape tied to the bell, with a white
ribbon, and she knew that either May, or the little sissy that she used
so often to speak of, was dead.

"Is that for May," asked she, as Biddy spoke softly to her from the top
step; and she pointed to the funeral emblems that were floating in the
wintry breeze. "And may I see her, Biddy?"

"Shure, and that ye may," said Biddy, "and it's Winnie she was calling
the day she died, jist before the life left her swate body; and how is
the babby?" asked she, as Nannie followed her to the drawing-room.

"She's gone where May is," replied the sister, suppressing her sobs as
far as she was able; "I knew they'd be wanted there!" and she stopped
for the nurse to admit a little more light into the darkened room.

How beautiful little May was in her quiet repose! She lay upon the sofa
with her soft curls falling over the calm forehead, and flowers covered
the pillow, and her hands were folded upon her gentle breast as if they
had done all their little work on earth.

Mrs. Minturn had seen Nannie enter the room, and she knew her as the
child May had so often spoken about, and she went softly in where they
were and stood beside the sofa, so pale and calm in her sorrow that
Nannie was almost frightened. She noticed Nannie as she kissed the still
sleeper, and smoothed down the silken hair lovingly, and she severed one
beautiful lock and laid it in the poor girl's hand. Biddy had told her
mistress of Winnie, and she had felt that the two children were as
sisters in that Spirit land, and so she spared the precious curl. Oh!
how Nannie treasured it. It seemed such a sacred thing to her to possess
something that the finger of death had hallowed, and when she went home
she folded it in a soft paper and put it within the cover of the big
Bible, and often she drew it reverently forth, in after years, as she
dwelt upon the two seraphs whose forms she could distinguish amid the
angel band.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Mrs. Bates sat alone in the quiet room, sewing all the day, while Nannie
was at school. It was so very still that it was oppressive to her.
Winnie's cradle occupied the same spot as when the babe was in it--she
could not put i