"I think she could not sleep. I woke up, and there was my mother; and Charles woke presently, and she said Charles should go out and try to bring back some cold stones in a cup, and then presently she sat down again, and went to sleep." He rose softly, and taking the little girl by the hand, came up to Ellen's side, and looked upon her. She was lying at full length on the floor; her head was toward him, but her face was turned upon the ground, and her hair further hid it; her right arm was fallen forward, and the back of that hand lay in the palm of the other. He did not hear nor see her breathe. "Is it so, my Ellen?" he said. "Art thou at rest? Is there no farewell for me?" He kneeled and stooped lower and lower. His lip did not venture to feel hers; he longed that she might be free, yet shrank from knowing that she was gone. But no; she had not ceased to suffer; a low sigh came at last, and her parched mouth opened. "Water!" she said; then lifted her eyes and saw Paulett, and remembered all by degrees. "Is not there a little? Oh, no--none! Nay, I shall not want it soon!" She turned her face on Paulett's breast, and soon after tried to rise and push herself from him. "Leave me, dear husband; kiss me once, and leave me; try to save _them_!" But Paulett folded his arms round her. "Not so, my Ellen; the chances of life are so little, that it is lawful for me to give them up, unless we can all seek them together. Alas! all I can do is but to see thee die! Oh, if I could give thee one minute's ease!" "Alas! you must all die like this," said Ellen, who was perishing like one of the flowers that had died in the drought for want of rain. Water would have saved that life, spared those sufferings. That burning hand, those gasping lips, those anxious eyes, revealed what the spirit passing away in that torment would fain have concealed. "Alice, come near me; hold my hand, Alice. Are you thirsty, poor child? Oh, do not grieve your father! It will be but a short time, my little girl--be patient." Ellen tried to kiss her; her husband kneeled and raised her head on his shoulder, bending his face on her forehead, and murmuring the last farewell--the last thanks--the agony of his pity for her suffering. The poor child threw herself on her mother, gazing upward in want, and grief, and bewilderment, in her face. "My Charles," said the mother, feeling about with the other hand, but she did not find his head to bless it. "My Charles," she repeated in a fainter tone, and her eyelids drooped over the hot eyes. Paulett saw nothing but his suffering wife, heard nothing except her painful breath. At that moment the door opened, and Charles stood there, paler than ever, with glittering eyes. He held the cup towards his father. "Father," he said, "there is water coming down from heaven!" Paulett looked up and cried, "O God, it rains!" A TENDER CONSCIENCE.