"Teacher's come," said Grandma Keeler, with soft; pathetic cheer, bending over the child. "Would she care now?" I thought. "Would she know me?" Just once she opened her eyes wide, smiled, and threw her arms towards me feebly. I would have taken her then, I thought, if it had been my death. They wrapped a shawl around her, and I took her in my arms, rocked her gently and sang to her, very softly, the songs she loved best. She moved a little restlessly, and then lay very still with her head on my breast. So I rocked and sang to Bess, and the two women moved noiselessly about the room until Grandma Keeler came and looked down very intently into the little one's face. "She's asleep," I murmured, placing a finger on my lips. "Yes, she's asleep," said Grandma, in a trembling voice, solemnly. "Sweet, purty little one," she went on, with tears running down her cheeks, and she turned to the mother--"Thank God, you!" she exclaimed, with sudden strength and firmness in her voice, that was yet thrilled with emotion; "from sorrowin' and from pain forevermore, the Lord has took His lamb!" Ay, life's chain of dewy morning flowers was broken! The baby fingers had dropped those purple fragments without grief, now, or dismay--only the peace of some sweet unfolding mystery over the veiled blue eyes! Still, she seemed to me asleep--only asleep. I felt no shrinking from the dead child in my arms. When they took her away from me and laid her on the bed, I looked at her tranquil face, and the mother's passionate grief seemed out of place. Why should one wish to wake another from such repose? I could not comprehend the mother's aching sense of loss. But later, when we heard the sound of wheels and saw Captain Sartell and the doctor driving very fast up the lane, I went down the stairs and passed out before them. I could not bear to watch the strong man's face when he should find his baby dead. Little Bess was buried under the lilac blossoms. The fever which had so soon smitten her down was not properly a contagious one. I went on with my school again, missing the sweet face of the dead child more and more each succeeding day. Not one of the children with whom she had played was taken sick, but it was scarcely two weeks after her death that I was taken sick as she had been. In the interval George Olver had come to me and I had written to Rebecca, but Rebecca had not come back to Wallencamp nor answered my letter. I was more anxious and troubled about her than I dared confess to any one. Then suddenly I ceased to care for any of those things. Of my last afternoon in school I could recall very little afterwards, except that the clock on the shelf back of me seemed to be ticking in my brain, and the voices in the room sounded indistinct. My own voice sounded to me like that of some one else speaking from a long way off.