a subdued tremor. The capricious elf, the tricksy sprite,
was melting away in the immortal soul, and the deep pathetic power of a
noble heart was being born. Some influence sprung of sorrow is necessary
always to perfect beauty in womanly nature. We feel its absence in many
whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life,
but in whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness and
sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, changing in the
expression of her face and the tone of her character, as she ministered
in the daily wants which sickness brings in a simple household.

For the rest of the neighborhood, the shelves and larder of Mrs. Pennel
were constantly crowded with the tributes which one or another sent in
for the invalid. There was jelly of Iceland moss sent across by Miss
Emily, and brought by Mr. Sewell, whose calls were almost daily. There
were custards and preserves, and every form of cake and other
confections in which the housekeeping talent of the neighbors delighted,
and which were sent in under the old superstition that sick people must
be kept eating at all hazards.

At church, Sunday after Sunday, the simple note requested the prayers of
the church and congregation for Mara Lincoln, who was, as the note
phrased it, drawing near her end, that she and all concerned might be
prepared for the great and last change. One familiar with New England
customs must have remembered with what a plaintive power the reading of
such a note, from Sunday to Sunday, has drawn the thoughts and
sympathies of a congregation to some chamber of sickness; and in a
village church, where every individual is known from childhood to every
other, the power of this simple custom is still greater.

Then the prayers of the minister would dwell on the case, and thanks
would be rendered to God for the great light and peace with which he had
deigned to visit his young handmaid; and then would follow a prayer that
when these sad tidings should reach a distant friend who had gone down
to do business on the great waters, they might be sanctified to his
spiritual and everlasting good. Then on Sunday noons, as the people ate
their dinners together in a room adjoining the church, all that she said
and did was talked over and over,--how quickly she had gained the
victory of submission, the peace of a will united with God's, mixed with
harmless gossip of the sick chamber,--as to what she ate and how she
sle