nge intelligence. She dared not call her back any more, but knelt
right down on the ground where she was, and held her breath, as one does
when they think a spirit is passing by.

"'I can't come back, mother,' said Lily, just as she reached the bank,
where the angel was waiting for her, for it was nobody else but an
angel, as one might know by its wings. 'You will come to me by-and-by--I
can see you now, mother. There's no more night for me.'

"Then the angel covered her, as it were, with his wings--or rather, they
seemed to have one pair of wings between them, and they began to rise
above the earth, slow at first, and easy, just as you've seen the clouds
roll up, after a shower. Then they went up faster and higher, till they
didn't look bigger than two stars, shining up overhead.

"The next day a traveler was passing along the banks of the stream,
below the great waterfall, and he found the body of the beautiful blind
girl, lying among the water-lilies there. Her name was Lily, you know.
She looked as white and sweet as they did, and there never was such a
smile seen, as there was upon her pale lips. He took her up, and curried
her to the nearest house, which happened to be her own mother's. Then
the mother knew that Lily had been drowned the night before, and that
she had seen her going up to Heaven, with the twin angel, created for
her and with her, at the beginning of creation. She felt happy, for she
knew Lily was no longer blind."

If we could give an adequate idea of Miss Thusa's manner, so solemn and
impressive, of the tones of her voice, monotonous and slightly nasal,
yet full of intensity, and, above all, of the expression of her
foreboding eye, while in the act of narration, it would be easy to
account for the effect which she produced. Helen and Alice were bathed
in tears before the conclusion, and a deepening seriousness rested on
the countenances of all her auditors.

"You _will_ be sad and gloomy, Miss Thusa," cried Louis; "see what you
have done; you should not have chosen such a subject."

"I don't think it is sad," exclaimed Alice, raising her head and shaking
her ringlets over her eyes to veil her tears. "I did not weep for
sorrow, but it is so touching. Oh! I could envy Lily, when the beautiful
angel came and bore her away on his shining wings."

"I think with Alice," said the young doctor, "that it is far from being
a gloomy tale, and the impression it leaves is salutary. The young girl,
walk