“It seems that she did not sleep well, and about an hour ago, hearing the clock strike one, and hearing the family still stirring below, she woke up her daughter, who was sleeping beside her, and asked what kept the family up so late. Belinda replied that they were waiting for the commodore and his party, who had gone to the Wilderness Manor-house to see the dying woman, Ann Whitlock. Whereupon Mrs. Warde got out of bed and went across the room, it was thought to procure a glass of water. In coming back to the bed she fell heavily to the floor. Belinda sprang out of bed and ran to her mother’s help, and raised her head from the floor. But she was quite dead.” “She had organic disease of the heart. It might have been expected,” said Dr. Willet curtly. “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord,” reverently murmured Leonidas Bruce, raising his hat. Whether Malvina Warde died of heart disease or of prussic acid self-administered, can never now be known. Her remains lie in the family burial ground in the Wilderness Manor, beside those of her tool and victim, Ann Whitlock, who penitently and peacefully expired the same night, with her hand clasped in that of her beloved foster-child, Em. Belinda Warde was mercifully spared the knowledge of her mother’s crime. Immediately after the funeral she accepted the invitation of Mrs. Delaney Fanning, and went to make her home with that lady at beautiful “Belle Plains,” until her marriage the next year to a middle-aged colonel of marines. Susan Palmer fully justified Emolyn’s faith in her sense of right. After keeping Em. for a few days, she voluntarily brought the girl to The Breezes, and willingly and cheerfully surrendered her to the charge of her rightful parents. “We bring up our darters in care and toil, and if we don’t lose ’em by death, we’re most sure to lose ’em by marriage. So what dif’ence do it make anyway, Susan, my dear, when ‘sich is life?’” said John when his wife came back without his favorite child. “Em. loves us and we love her, therefore we can never really lose her in this world nor the next,” answered Susan. Among all who rejoiced in the good fortune of our little girl, none did so more sincerely than the poor colored people of the Wilderness Manor, whose affections her goodness had won. “Miss Em. deserves it all,” said old ’Sias, the gatekeeper—“Miss Em. deserves all that, and more too. For I never knowed sich a little angel as she is in all the days of my yethly pilgrimage, and that mus’ be by dis time ’bout two hundred years, chillun! Two hundred years, more or less—more or _less_, honies; for I wouldn’t be guilty of a falsehood on no account,” added ’Sias, solemnly. “Yes, Miss Em. was a good gal, sure enough,” put in Aunt Sally. “Miss Em. never meant no harm, and she never did nothing to nobody.”