ce
he asked, "Would we call her back?" there was not a heart at that moment
that dared answer, Yes. Even he that should have been her bridegroom
could not at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they bore
her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the soil, by the side
of poor Dolores.

* * * * *

"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah Pennel, the next
morning after the funeral, as he opened his Bible to conduct family
worship.

"What was it?" said Miss Roxy.

"Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down, and lookin'
and lookin' for something that I'd lost. What it was I couldn't quite
make out, but my heart felt heavy as if it would break, and I was
lookin' all up and down the sands by the seashore, and somebody said I
was like the merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my
pearl--my pearl of great price--and then I looked up, and far off on the
beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my pearl. I thought it was
Mara, but it seemed a great pearl with a soft moonlight on it; and I was
running for it when some one said 'hush,' and I looked and I saw _Him_
a-coming--Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of Galilee. It
was all dark night around Him, but I could see Him by the light that
came from his face, and the long hair was hanging down on his shoulders.
He came and took up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone
out like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy; and he
looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air, and melted in the
clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so calm!"

CHAPTER XLIV

FOUR YEARS AFTER

It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled high with
gorgeous tabernacles of purple and gold, the remains of a grand
thunder-shower which had freshened the air and set a separate jewel on
every needle leaf of the old pines.

Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island had been laid
beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent monthly tributes of
flowers to adorn her rest, great blue violets, and starry flocks of
ethereal eye-brights in spring, and fringy asters, and goldenrod in
autumn. In those days, the tender sentiment which now makes the
burial-place a cultivated garden was excluded by the rigid spiritualism
of the Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the
body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal alo