u want, dear Amanda?" asked the husband, laying his hand
gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of coming
dissolution.

"My dear babes," she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an
effort. "My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am laid
at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!"

Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her
head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud. The
infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when she had
a little recovered herself.

"Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!" she said, with tender animation. "My
sweet, sweet baby! I cannot give you up!" And she clasped it to her
breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled over
her pale cheek. "And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?" she
asked.

Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was
brought in and lifted upon the bed.

"Don't cry, ma," said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her
mother's cheeks, "don't cry; I'll always be good."

"Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!" the mother sobbed, eagerly
kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers; and then clasped
the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.

The children were, after a time, removed, but the thoughts of the dying
mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were
self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.

"I now see and feel," said she, looking up into the face of her mother,
after having lain with closed eyes for about ten minutes, "that all my
sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be upon me, would
have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to be guided by you.
I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way. How could it have
been otherwise, and I so strangely regardless of all the laws of
health? But, my dear mother, the past is beyond recall; and now I leave
to you the dear little ones from whom I must soon part for ever. I feel
calmer than I have felt for some time. The bitterness of the last agony
seems over. But I do not see you, nor you, dear husband! Give me your
hands. Here, let my head rest on your bosom. It is sweet to lie
thus--Anna--dear child! Mary--sweet, sweet babe!"--

The lips of the young wife and mother moved feebly, and inarticulate
whispers fell faintly from her tongue for some moments, and then she
sank to sleep--and it was a sleep from which none wake in t