ception of such articles as it was considered more desirable to purchase
in New York or Philadelphia--was ready, all the arrangements for the
wedding feast had been made, and but a day or two intervened between that
and the one which was to see Annis become a bride and set out upon her
wedding tour.

The evening meal was over, and leaving the table they assembled upon the
deck.

"Has anyone seen the evening paper or the morning one either?" asked Mr.
Dinsmore, addressing his query to the company in general.

"Yes, sir; I have," answered Harold. "There has been an awful railroad
collision, one section of the train running into another; a good many
killed; one lady meeting with a most terrible fate," he added with
emotion, "but she was an earnest, active Christian worker, and no doubt is
now rejoicing before the throne of God."

"But oh, couldn't they have saved her?" asked his mother, in tones
tremulous with feeling. "How was it? what was the difficulty?"

"The car was crushed and broken, her limbs caught between broken timbers
in such a way that it was impossible to free her in season to prevent the
flames--for the car was on fire--from burning her to death. The upper part
of her body was free, and she close to a window, so that she could speak
to the gathered crowd who, though greatly distressed by the sight of her
agony, were powerless to help her. She sent messages to her dear ones and
her Sunday-school class and died like a martyr."

"Poor dear woman!" said Violet, in low, tender tones. "Oh, how well that
her peace was made with God before the accident, for she could do little
thinking in such an agony of pain."

"Yes; and such sudden calls should make us all careful to be ready at any
moment for the coming of the Master," said Mr. Dinsmore.

"Yes," assented the captain, "and we do not know that he may not come at
any moment, for any of us; either by death or in the clouds of heaven.
'Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man
cometh,' is his own warning to us all."

"Dear Christian woman, how happy she is now!" said Grandma Elsie; "that
agony of pain all over, and an eternity of bliss at God's right hand--an
eternity of the Master's love and presence already hers."

A moment of deep and solemn silence followed, then from the lake they
seemed to hear two voices sweetly singing:

"I would not live alway: I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises da