bereft you of reason,--you know not what you say. Gabriella, it is an
awful thing to resist the Almighty God. Submission is the heritage of
dust and ashes. _I_ have been proud and rebellious, smarting under a
sense of unmerited chastisement and wrong. Because man was false, I
thought God unjust,--but now, on this dying bed, the illusion of passion
is dispelled, and I see Him as He is, longsuffering, compassionate, and
indulgent, in all his loving-kindness and tender mercy, strong to
deliver and mighty to save. I feel that I have needed all the discipline
of sorrow through which I have passed, to bring my proud and troubled
soul, a sin-sick, life weary wanderer, to my Father's footstool. What
matters now, my Gabriella, that I have trod a thorny path, if it lead to
heaven at last? How short the journey,--how long the rest! Oh, beloved
child, bow to the hand that smites thee, for the stubborn will _must_ be
broken. Wait not, like me, till it be ground into dust."

She paused breathless and exhausted, but I answered not. Low sobs came
gaspingly from my bosom, on which a mountain of ice seemed freezing.

"If we could die together," she continued, with increasing solemnity,
"if I could bear you in these feeble arms to the mercy-seat of God, and
know you were safe from temptation, and sorrow, and sin, the bitterness
of death would be passed. It is a fearful thing to live, my child, far
more fearful than to die,--but life is the trial of faith, and death the
victory."

"And now," she added, "before my spirit wings its upward flight, receive
my dying injunction. If you live to years of womanhood, and your heart
awakens to love,--as, alas, for woman's destiny it will,--then read my
life and sad experience, and be warned by my example. Mrs. Linwood is
intrusted with the manuscript, blotted with your mother's tears. Oh,
Gabriella, by all your love and reverence for the memory of the
dead,--by the scarlet dye that can be made white as wool,--by your own
hope in a Saviour's mercy, forgive the living,--if living _he_ indeed
be!"

Her eyes closed as she uttered these words, and a purplish gloom
gathered beneath her eyes. The doctor came in and administered ether,
which partially revived her. I have never been able to inhale it since,
without feeling sick and faint, and recalling the deadly odor of that
chamber of mourning.

About daybreak, I heard Dr. Harlowe say in the lowest whisper to Mrs.
Linwood that _she_ could not live mor