a description of that city of our God, more magnificent than
the streets of the New Jerusalem! This is what I have commenced to
write. I will go on.

For nine days Peggy wrestled with the destroying angel. During that
time, nineteen funerals had darkened the winding avenue which led to the
grave-yard, and she who was first attacked lingered last. It was
astonishing how my mother sustained herself during these days and nights
of intense anxiety. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, passive, enduring
as the marble statue she resembled. She ate nothing,--she did not sleep.
I know not what supported her. Dr. Harlowe brought her some of that
generous wine which had infused such life into my young veins, and
forced her to swallow it, but it never brought any color to her hueless
cheeks.

On the morning of the ninth day, Peggy sunk into a deathlike stupor. Her
mind had wandered during all her sickness, though most of the time she
lay in a deep lethargy, from which nothing could rouse her.

"Go down to the spring and breathe the fresh air," said the doctor;
"there should be perfect quiet here,--a few hours will decide her fate."

I went down to the spring, where the twilight shades were gathering. The
air came with balmy freshness to my anxious, feverish brow. I scooped up
the cold water in the hollow of my hand and bathed my face. I shook my
hair over my shoulders, and dashed the water over every disordered
tress. I began to breathe more freely. The burning weight, the
oppression, the suffocation were passing away, but a dreary sense of
misery, of coming desolation remained. I sat down on the long grass, and
leaning my head on my clasped hands, watched the drops as they fell from
my dropping hair on the mossy rock below.

"Is it not too damp for you here?"

I knew Richard Clyde was by me,--I heard his light footsteps on the
sward, but I did not look up.

"It is not as damp as the grave will be," I answered.

"Don't talk so, Gabriella, don't. I cannot bear to hear you. This will
be all over soon, and it will be to you like a dark and troubled dream."

"Yes; I know it will be all over soon. We shall all lie in the
churchyard together,--Peggy, my mother, and I,--and you will plant a
white rose over my mother's grave, will you not? Not over mine. No
flowers have bloomed for me in life,--it would be nothing to place them
over my sleeping dust."

"Gabriella! You are excited,--you are ill. Give me your hand. I know you
hav