The mortal sickness was gone; the months of feeble health were wiped out; the limbs felt tireless as of old; pain was to her an unknown experience, weakness a thing she had never felt; she was lithe, and active, and strong; restless and insatiable for movement, as ever; the game they had played at so often was to be played once more; adown the slope they were to go, swift, and happy, and free; adown the slope, over the grass, under the trees, into the Hollow, among the blackberry bushes, and then—— Bessie lifted the child, and laying her in her mother’s arms, said, “Take her, Heather.” That was all—a moment after in this world there was no Lally, she had passed to the Eternal Shore. Ah me! ah me! who in the days not so very long departed would ever have thought that the little comedy of Lally’s life should come to hold within it so bitter a tragedy for Heather; who would ever have fancied that the fair freckled face should wear so worn and wasted a look, that the little hands should be crossed and lie so motionless upon her breast, that the eyes should never sparkle with glee nor fill with tears again, that the sound of her laugh should never be heard more? No more, no more! it all came to Heather’s mind as she laid her first-born on the bed—dead. No more, no more! and then the torrent of her grief, like a tide which has for a brief period been kept back by a feeble barrier, broke bounds and swept everything before it in a resistless flood. No more, no more! never to part the laurels again and peep forth from amongst the green leaves gleefully, never to stand amidst the flowers, with her little frock held up to receive the buds Bessie showered into it, never to sit with Muff in her lap, never to kneel on the sward hugging Nep’s great head, never to be in and out, out and in, never to go to the sea-side as they had pictured, and gather shell, and weed, and pebble, never to see the spring come round again, and the primroses dot the copse. No more—no more! Never more either to grow older and to change, never to be a grown-up daughter, never to be taught anything, never to alter, never to be either sorrow or comfort, curse or blessing in the future, never to have a bitter memory attached to her; always to be “little Lally,” always to be a child. In the future there came consolation to the mother from this thought, but that future was far off in the hour when she knelt beside the bed weeping as though her very heart would break. Somehow they got her out of the room, and Agnes stayed with Heather while Bessie dressed “her child” for the last time, and left her, a smile still hovering on her lips, to sleep the soundest sleep even Lally had ever known. Stealing softly down the stairs Bessie met Arthur. She had her bonnet on and veil down, so as she stood aside on one of the landings to let him pass, he did so without recognising her. The man was white as his dead child, and trembling like a leaf.