rd upon him. Aunt Roxy, please pick
some roses off the bush from under the window and put in the vases;
let's have the room as sweet and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let
me live long enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, if one
would only think so, to cross that river. All looks so bright to me now
that I have forgotten how sorrow seemed. Poor Moses! he will have a hard
struggle, but he will get the victory, too. I am very weak to-night, but
to-morrow I shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and perhaps I can
paint a little on that flower I was doing for him. We will not have
things look sickly or deathly. There, Aunt Roxy, he has come in; I hear
his step."

"I didn't hear it," said Miss Roxy, surprised at the acute senses which
sickness had etherealized to an almost spirit-like intensity. "Shall I
call him?"

"Yes, do," said Mara. "He can sit with me a little while to-night."

The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of gold and gloom,
when Moses stole softly in. The great cloud-castle that a little while
since had glowed like living gold from turret and battlement, now dim,
changed for the most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow
of crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun had sunk
into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand stretched out to him.

"Sit down," she said; "it has been such a beautiful sunset. Did you
notice it?"

He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his hand, but saying
nothing.

She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "I am so glad to see you,"
she said. "It is such a comfort to me that you have come; and I hope it
will be to you. You know I shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night,
and I hope we shall have some pleasant days together yet. We mustn't
reject what little we may have, because it cannot be more."

"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life, if I could take back the
past. I have never been worthy of you; never knew your worth; never made
you happy. You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve to
lose you, but it is none the less bitter."

"Don't say lose. Why must you? I cannot think of losing you. I know I
shall not. God has given you to me. You will come to me and be mine at
last. I feel sure of it."

"You don't know me," said Moses.

"Christ does, though," she said; "and He has promised to care for you.
Yes, you will live to see many flowers grow out of my grave. You cannot
think