of speedy dissolution were on the pale, shrunken features; not
beautiful, in the ordinary acceptation of beauty, but from the pure
spirit within. Radiant with heavenly light was the smile that
instantly played upon her lips.

"How are you to-day, Anna?" kindly inquired Mrs. Bell, as she took
the shadowy hand of the dying girl.

"Weaker in body than when you were here yesterday," was answered;
"but stronger in spirit."

"I have brought Mrs. Ellis to see you. You remember Mrs. Ellis?"

Anna lifted her bright eyes to the face of Mrs. Ellis, and said--

"Oh yes, very well;" and she feebly extended her hand. The lady
touched her hand with an emotion akin to awe. As yet, the scene
oppressed and bewildered her. There was something about it that was
dreamlike and unreal. "Death! death!" she questioned with herself;
"can this be dying?"

"Your day will soon close, Anna," said Mrs. Bell, in a cheerful
tone.

"Or, as we say," quickly replied Anna, smiling, "my morning will
soon break. It is only a kind of twilight here. I am waiting for the
day-dawn."

"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Ellis, with much earnestness,
bending over the dying girl as she spoke--the newness and
strangeness of the scene had so wrought upon her feelings, that she
could not repress their utterance--"Is all indeed as you say? Are
you inwardly so calm, so hopeful, so confident of the morning?
Forgive me such a question, at such a moment. But the thought of
death has ever been terrible to me; and now, to see a fellow-mortal
standing, as you are, so near the grave, and yet speaking in
cheerful tones of the last agony, fills me with wonder. Is it all
real? Are you so full of heavenly tranquillity?"

Was the light dimmed in Anna's eyes by such pressing questions? Did
they turn her thoughts too realizingly upon the "last agony?" Oh no!
Even in the waning hours of life, her quickest impulse was to render
service to another. Earnest, therefore, was her desire to remove
from the lady's mind this fear of death, even though she felt the
waters of Jordan already touching her own descending feet.

"God is love," she said, and with an emphasis that gave to the mind
of Mrs. Ellis a new appreciation of the words. "In his love he made
us, that he might bless us with infinite and eternal blessings, and
these await us in heaven. And now that he sends an angel to take me
by the hand and lead me up to my heavenly home, shall I tremble and
fear to accompany the celes