ck--quick--for the doctor."

"Where, mother--where shall I find him?"

"Oh! I don't know," said the distracted woman, chafing her husband's
temples; "ask somebody--quick, dear Julien, for the love of God!--the
death dew is on your father's forehead."

"Cholera," said the doctor. "I can do nothing for him, my poor woman;
the disease is raging fearfully here; he cannot live an hour."

"_Nothing_ to be done?" said the poor wife, fixing her eyes on her
dying husband, and watching his spasms; "_nothing_ to be done? Oh, sir,
don't tell me _that_."

But even while she spoke the dark shadow fell. The loving eyes grew
glassy; the hand she held relaxed its hold, and that "change," so
subtle, so fearful, (that all have _seen_ yet none may _tell_,) flitted
over his face.

Death came for more than _one_ victim, to that doomed house. First one
little head drooped, then another, then the soft eyes closed, and the
little lip said, quiveringly, "It is all dark; kiss us, dear mother;"
and Mrs. Adrian was a childless widow.

Dear children, God be praised that the world is not all a desert--that
there are hearts that feel, eyes that weep, and hands that minister to
the sorrow-stricken. Mammon has left some hearts that he has not
shrivelled, some eyes that he has not blinded, some hands that he has
not fettered.

Poor Mrs. Adrian! She knew that there were strangers about her, and
that their voices were kind, and their hands busy straightening the
dear limbs, and smoothing the cherished locks, and placing them
reverently in "the narrow house;" she knew that the hearse came at
their bidding, and bore her dead away; she knew that they led her back
to that forsaken room, and held the tempting morsel to her grieved lip,
and she felt their warm tears drop upon her cheek, and their kind hands
upon her throbbing forehead; but it was all like a dream to her.

Oh, my dear children, where could she have turned in that dark hour if
not to _Heaven_? What if she had said, with the unbeliever, "There is
no God?" How could she try to lean on reeds that bent and broke beneath
her? Oh, no, no! when sickness and trouble come, our hearts _must have
a God_. Heaven _only_ can bring healing to a heart so stunned with
pain; and there the poor English woman sought it.

Did God ever forsake those who threw themselves on _His_ great loving
heart for comfort?

Never!

If Mrs. Adrian could not smile, she did not weep. True, she looked for
rosy little fa