d, and held it out
to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it.
It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great
difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a
little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring
when she was twelve years old.

She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and
then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she
shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one
word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another
word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she
sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said
she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did
not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that
night, and when she woke I was preparing it.

"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can
be tipped back?"

"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?"

"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping
together."

At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's
bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so
grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in
the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never
left the baby's face.

She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached
out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands
clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each
other.

"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she
said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning."

Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time;
it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of
illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like
the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known
and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm
which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even
to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder,
without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over
every hour of her