Days passed on, and there were serious faces, more than one, in that house where it was impertinent to speak of death and eternity. It is true, that for a time gay visitors were admitted to Helen's chamber, and there was hollow laughter there, as they talked of balls, parties, and new fashions, and told the poor girl that she was looking better every day: but Dora saw them whisper, and shake their heads to each other as they passed out; and she saw that every day the mother grew more fearful as it regarded the daughter, and kinder toward herself. At last she was told that Helen wanted her; but she was charged to be careful, as the poor girl was extremely weak. "Dora, Dora," said Helen, "_you_ will tell me the truth. Mother said that I should not be deceived; but I have been, O, I have been cruelly deceived." Dora talked soothingly of Him who is the resurrection and the life: but the poor girl had opened her eyes all too suddenly upon the startling picture of death; and now shrinking from his cold embrace, she could not hear of hope and comfort. Her dying words were to the mother fraught with keenest anguish, for she spoke of this cruel deceit unto the last. Amanda soon followed her young sister to the tomb; but the mother was spared the self-accusation and bitter sorrow attendant upon Helen's death. Early in her sickness Amanda was consigned to the care of Dora. It was in vain that the physician expostulated; Mrs. Lindsay feared nothing so much as again to hear words of reproof from a dying child for having deceived her. Dora kept her post with Christian fidelity, and Amanda entered the dark valley and shadow of death fearing no evil. Emma was at that time five years of age, and Martha ten. "My dear madam," said Dora, "fashion has robbed you of a great treasure. Your daughters, predisposed to consumption, cannot safely obey its whimsical demands." "Nonsense, Dora!" replied Mrs. Lindsay. But when alone, she thought seriously upon what the good woman had said. Memory brought before her mind pictures from which she could not turn. The thin-soled shoes, and silken hose, in which fashion had required her delicate daughters to promenade the damp walks of the city; the flimsy ball-dress, the prolonged dance, and joined with these, the sudden exposure to a wintry air, were shades upon the bright picture of pleasures past,--dark shades indeed, but awfully true. "Perhaps Martha and Emma may be spared to me," said the mother to her fashionable friends; "but how can I think of the conditions!" and her friends talked over the matter among themselves, and concluded that, after all, a person's life was of but little value, if they must live secluded from the world; and they gave Mrs. Lindsay a remote hint, that it was best to let her daughters live _while_ they lived.