"I know that. Is not my soul shrouded in sackcloth drinking wormwood and gall--when my body is bedizened in its finest array, and the sparkling wine reflecting the lying bloom, that says I am glad and gay! I envied you your mourning dress as long as you wore it; and when he was named by the hypocrites who fawned upon him in life, I had to seem as unconcerned as they; you had no need to stifle your sighs, for he was your friend. I had denied him as my lover, while we were betrothed; I cannot publish it now. There is but one restraint upon my despair. If, as you say, the spirits of beloved ones are with us, and he is among the blest, he must be grieved,--if they can grieve--that I contemn the Being he loves." "Ellen! this language is evidence that your chastisement is not wanton injustice. Whether he hears you or not, you grieve and insult your Maker by your mad words, the Saviour, to whom you are indebted for being and comforts and friends--who has loved you from the beginning. You knelt to a creature He had made; He interposed the gate of death, to save you from the fate of the idolater, and you ask to spend your life in bewailing your affliction--in showing your adoration of perishable dust, and reviling your best Friend! Is this your gratitude?" Ellen did not speak. Ida drew her closer. "My dearest girl!" she said, "I do not reprove you in my own name. I have been as guilty as yourself; and it is in remembrance of the retribution which followed, I warn you--in remembrance of the love that forgave me, and bestowed peace and joy, in place of disquiet and mourning, that I entreat you--come to Jesus!" "I cannot! your pleadings are water upon a rock. I have been thinking, as you were speaking, whether I cared to go to Heaven--and I painted it, gloriously beautiful, as holy men tell us it is--but without the love, my foolish vanity tempted me to sport with, when it was mine--for which I would imperil my soul now--and the Creator of that heaven, and its angels, and fair sights and music were delightless. Rather misery with _him_, than every other joy without. Oh! if he had known how I loved him!" Her head fell upon the tomb, and the tears rained upon the turf. Ida wept, too--but in pity. Ellen was perverse in her hopeless sorrow--her friend could only commit her to the tender mercy she had besought her to seek. "If you knew how Our Father loves you both, dear Ellen!" she whispered, but there was no reply.