"And mamma used to tell you that perhaps, if you put off and put off, the years hence might never come for you, Selina." "What! you remember that, do you?" she said, with a smile. "Yes, she used to lecture me; she was fifteen years older than I, and assumed the right to do so." "Mamma never _lectured_; what she said was always kind and gentle," was my sobbing answer. "Yes, yes. You think me insensible now, Anne; but my grief is over—that is the violence of the grief. When the letter came to say Ursula was dead, I cried the whole day, never ceasing." "Mamma had a warning of her death," I continued; for it was one of the things she had charged me to tell to her sister Selina. "Had a what, child?" "A warning. The night before she was taken ill—I mean dangerously ill—she dreamt she saw papa in a most beautiful place, all light and flowers; no place on earth could ever have been so beautiful except the Garden of Eden. He beckoned her to come to him, and pointed to a vacant place by his side, saying, 'It is ready for you now, Ursula.' Mamma awoke then, and the words were sounding in her ears; she could have felt sure that they were positively spoken." "And you can tell me this with a grave face, calling it a warning!" exclaimed Selina. "Mamma charged me to tell it you. She related the dream to us the next morning——" "_Us!_ Whom do you mean, child?" "Me and our old maid Betty. She was my nurse, you know. Mamma said what a pleasant dream it was, that she was sorry to awake from it; but after she grew ill, she said she knew it was sent as a warning." Selina laughed. "You have lived boxed up with that stupid old Betty and your mamma, child, until you are like a grave little woman. Ursula was always superstitious. You will say you believe in ghosts next." "No, I do not believe in ghosts. I do in warnings. Mamma said that never a Keppe-Carew died yet without being warned of it: though few of them had noticed it at the time." "There, that will do, Anne. I am a Carew, and I don't want to be frightened into watching for a 'warning.' You are a Carew also, by the mother's side. Do you know, my poor child, that you are not left well off?" "Yes; mamma has told me all. I don't mind." "Don't mind!" echoed Selina, with another light laugh. "That's because you don't understand, Anne. What little your mamma had left has been sunk in an annuity for your education—eighty or a hundred pounds a year, until you are eighteen. There's something more, I believe, for clothes and incidental expenses." "I said I did not mind, Selina, because I am not afraid of getting my own living. Mamma said that a young lady, well-educated and of good birth, can always command a desirable position as governess. She told me not to fear, for God would take care of me."