reast, and broke into a tempest of tears and sobs
and lamentations.

"Oh, Nora! my darling! are you really dead and gone from me forever?
Shall I never hear the sound of your light step coming in, nor meet the
beamings of your soft eyes, nor feel your warm arms around my neck, nor
listen to your coaxing voice, pleading for some little indulgence which
half the time I refused you?

"How could I have refused you, my darling, anything, hard-hearted that I
was! Ah! how little did I think how soon you would be taken from me, and
I should never be able to give you anything more! Oh, Nora, come back to
me, and I will give you everything I have--yes, my eyes, and my life,
and my soul, if they could bring you back and make you happy!

"My beautiful darling, you were the light of my eyes and the pulse of my
heart and the joy of my life! You were all that I had in the world! my
little sister and my daughter and my baby, all in one! How could you die
and leave me all alone in the world, for the love of a man? me who loves
you more than all the men on the earth could love!

"Nora, I shall look up from my loom and see your little wheel standing
still--and where the spinner? I shall sit down to my solitary meals and
see your vacant chair--and where my companion? I shall wake in the dark
night and stretch out my arms to your empty place beside me--and where
my warm loving sister? In the grave! in the cold, dark, still grave!

"Oh, Heaven! Heaven! how can I bear it?--I, all day in the lonely house!
all night in the lonely bed! all my life in the lonely world! the black,
freezing, desolate world! and she in her grave! I cannot bear it! Oh,
no, I cannot bear it! Angels in heaven, you know that I cannot! Speak to
the Lord, and ask him to take me!

"Lord, Lord, please to take me along with my child. We were but two! two
orphan sisters! I have grown gray in taking care of her! She cannot do
without me, nor I without her! We were but two! Why should one be taken
and the other left? It is not fair, Lord! I say it is not fair!" raved
the mourner, in that blind and passionate abandonment of grief which is
sure at its climax to reach frenzy, and break into open rebellion
against Omnipotent Power.

And it is well for us that the Father is more merciful than our
tenderest thoughts, for he pardons the rebel and heals his wounds.

The sorrow of the young man, deepened by remorse, was too profound for
such outward vent. He leaned against the b