reat leveller,
had entered the house, and the mountains of human distinction flowed
down at his presence.

"I am come to nurse you," said Mrs. Linwood, taking my mother's pale,
emaciated hand and pressing it in both her own. "Do not look upon me as
a stranger, but as a friend--a sister. You will let me stay, will you
not?"

She seemed soliciting a favor, not conferring one.

"Thank you,--bless you!" answered my mother, her large dark eyes fixed
with thrilling intensity on her face. Then she added, in a lower voice,
glancing towards me, "_she_ will not be left friendless, then. You will
remember _her_ when I am gone."

"Kindly, tenderly, even with a mother's care," replied Mrs. Linwood,
tears suffusing her mild eyes, and testifying the sincerity of her
words.

My mother laid Mrs. Linwood's hand on her heart, whose languid beating
scarcely stirred the linen that covered it; then looking up to heaven,
her lips moved in silent prayer. A smile, faint but beautiful, passed
over her features, and left its sweetness on her face. From that hour to
the death-hour Mrs. Linwood did minister to her, as a loving sister
would have done. Edith often accompanied her mother and tried to comfort
me, but I was then inaccessible to comfort, as I was deaf to hope. When
she stayed away, I missed the soft floating of her airy figure, the
pitying glance of her heavenly blue eye; but when she came, I said to
myself,

"_Her_ mother is not dying. How can she sympathize with me? She is the
favorite of Him who is crushing me beneath the iron hand of His wrath."

Thus impious were my thoughts, but no one read them on my pale, drooping
brow. Mrs. Linwood praised my filial devotion, my fortitude and heroism.
Dr. Harlowe had told her how I had braved the terrors of midnight
solitude through the lonely woods, to bring him to a servant's bedside.
Richard Clyde had interested her in my behalf. She told me I had many
friends for one so young and so retiring. Oh! she little knew how coldly
fell the words of praise on the dull ear of despair. I smiled at the
thought of needing kindness and protection when _she_ was gone. As if it
were possible for me to survive my mother!

Had she not herself told me that grief did not kill? But I believed her
not.

Do you ask if I felt no curiosity then, about the mystery of my
parentage? I had been looking forward to the time when I should be
deemed old enough to know my mother's history of which my imagination