't bear it!" she
cried; the tears in her eyes, and a violence of agitation about her,
which her mother, feeble as she was, could not attempt to contend
with. She rested her head on her cushions, and silently and mournfully
followed with her eyes the hasty trembling movements of her daughter,
who continued to arrange the things on the table, and make desperate
attempts to regain her composure; but completely failing, caught up her
bonnet, and hurried out of the room.

"Poor dear child," said Mrs. Frederick Langford, "I wish she was more
prepared. Beatrice, the comforting her is the dearest and saddest task I
leave you. Fred, poor fellow, is prepared, and will bear up like a man;
but it will come fearfully upon her. And Henrietta and I have been more
like sisters than mother and daughter. If she would only bear to hear
me--but no, if I were to be overcome while speaking to her, it might
give her pain in the recollection. Beatrice, you must tell her all I
would say."

"If I could!"

"You must tell her, Beatrice, that I was as undisciplined as she is now.
Tell her how I have come to rejoice in the great affliction of my life:
how little I knew how to bear it when Frederick was taken from me and
his children, in the prime of his health and strength. You remember how
crushed to the ground I was, and how it was said that my life was saved
chiefly by the calmness that came with the full belief that I was dying.
And O! how my spirit rebelled when I found myself recovering! Do you
remember the first day I went to Church to return thanks?"

"It was after we were gone home."

"Ah! yes. I had put it off longer than I ought, because I felt so
utterly unable to join in the service. The sickness of heart that came
with those verses of thanksgiving! All I could do was to pray to be
forgiven for not being able to follow them. Now I can own with all
my heart the mercy that would not grant my blind wish for death. My
treasure was indeed in heaven, but O! it was not the treasure that was
meant. I was forgetting my mother, and so selfish and untamed was
I, that I was almost forgetting my poor babies! Yes, tell her this,
Beatrice, and tell her that, if duties and happiness sprang up all
around me, forlorn and desolate as I thought myself, so much the more
will they for her; and 'at evening time there shall be light.' Tell her
that I look to her for guiding and influencing Fred. She must never
let a week pass without writing to him, and