vividly before her, and the gentle expression of whose eyes, even on his
sick-bed, she could not forget. How full of meaning that glance had been, as
she leaned over him, holding in hers the pale hand which he had no longer
strength to raise! As she had sat by his little cot, so now she sat by his
grave; and here she could weep freely, and her tears fell upon it.
“Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child,” said a voice quite
close to her,-a voice that sounded so deep and clear, that it went to her heart.
She looked up, and by her side stood a man wrapped in a black cloak,
with a hood closely drawn over his face; but her keen glance could
distinguish the face under the hood. It was stern, yet awakened confidence,
and the eyes beamed with youthful radiance.
“Down to my child,” she repeated; and tones of despair and entreaty
sounded in the words.
“Darest thou to follow me?” asked the form. “I am Death.”
She bowed her head in token of assent. Then suddenly it appeared as if
all the stars were shining with the radiance of the full moon on the many-
colored flowers that decked the grave. The earth that covered it was drawn
back like a floating drapery. She sunk down, and the spectre covered her
with a black cloak; night closed around her, the night of death. She sank
deeper than the spade of the sexton could penetrate, till the churchyard
became a roof above her. Then the cloak was removed, and she found
herself in a large hall, of wide-spreading dimensions, in which there was a
subdued light, like twilight, reigning, and in a moment her child appeared
before her, smiling, and more beautiful than ever; with a silent cry she
pressed him to her heart. A glorious strain of music sounded-now distant,
now near. Never had she listened to such tones as these; they came from
beyond a large dark curtain which separated the regions of death from the
land of eternity.
“My sweet, darling mother,” she heard the child say. It was the well-
known, beloved voice; and kiss followed kiss, in boundless delight. Then
