That mysterious Providence who guides the fowler's messenger of death to the breast of the parent bird, leaving the callow nestling to perish with hunger, recalled the mother's spirit ere her labor of love was completed. Ida was an orphan in her fifteenth year;--the age of all others when a mother's counsels are needed;--when the child stands tremblingly upon the threshold of girlhood, and looks with wondering, wistful eyes into the rosy vista opened to her sight. Babes in knowledge, nine girls out of ten are grown in heart at fifteen. A stroke, whether of extraordinary joy or sorrow, will oftentimes demolish the gew-gaws of the child, and reveal instead, the patient endurance, the steady faith, the all-absorbing love of a woman. A week had passed--a week devoted by the bereaved to thoughts of, and weepings for the lost, by others to preparations for her residence among strangers. Years might elapse before her return. That night, as stealthily as though seeking a forbidden spot, she trod the path to her mother's grave. It was clear starlight, and she sat down beside the newly sodded mound, and rested her brow upon it. Cold--cold and hard! but it entombed her mother;--aye! and _her_ heart! for what had she to love now? There was no loving breast to receive that aching head;--no solace for the wounded spirit. The dew-gems lay freshly upon the grass;--for her the dewiness of life was gone;--earth was one vast sepulchre. She looked up to the stars. In the summer evenings her mother's chair used to stand in the piazza, and she sat at her feet, her eyes fixed alternately upon her angelic face, and the shining orbs above them. Mrs. Ross loved to think of them as the abodes of the blest; the mansions prepared for those who had sojourned in this sin-stained world and yet worn their white robes unblemished; and the theory was confidently adopted by the imaginative child. She drank in descriptions of the glories of those celestial regions until her straining eyes seemed to catch a glimpse of a seraph's glittering robe, and she leaned breathlessly forward to hear the music of his golden harp. But to-night the sparkling smiles of those effulgent ones, "forever singing as they shine," were changed to pitying regards as they beheld her so sad and lonely;--the gleam of the seraph's wings was dimmed; his far-off melody plaintive and low, and the burden of his song was "alone." The wind waved the willow-boughs, and a whispering ran through the leaves--"Alone--alone!" The words were so audibly breathed that the girl started in her delirious sorrow, and gazed wildly around. "Oh mother! cannot you leave Heaven for one short minute to comfort your child? Who will love her now? Alone, all alone! mother! _dear_ mother!" CHAPTER II