Near them sat John Cleve, reclining in a large resting-chair. His hands were folded before him, and he was gazing out upon the scene with a face illumined by reverence and serene rapture. Not a word had he spoken since the babies went to sleep. Now he murmured: “Oh! the beauty and the glory of Thy sunlit earth and heavens, our Father.” The words seemed to issue involuntarily from the lips of the speaker in the midst of the deep silence. “Oh! the loveliness of Thy celestial angels!” he murmured in a lower and a slower tone. Palma looked up from her sewing. He did not speak again. She turned around to look at him. He had sunk back in his chair and shrunken together. His hands lay folded on his knees, his head bowed on his chest, and his silver hair shining in the morning sunlight. His face could not possibly be whiter than it had always been since she had known him, but something else in his aspect startled and alarmed her. She sprang up and went to him, bent over him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Uncle! Uncle!” she said softly but eagerly, anxiously—“Uncle!” “Don’t distress—yourself, dear—it is all right—bless you.” These were his last words. His whole slight frame seemed to collapse and shrink closer together, his head sank lower, his hands slipped apart and dropped down by his sides. When Mrs. Pole, startled by some sound, hurried to the spot, she found Palma in a panic of grief and amazement too deep for utterance, standing over the lifeless body of the good old man. Mrs. Pole in great emergencies had but little self-possession. She threw up her hands in horror, and then ran wildly in and out of the house, shrieking: “Polly! Hatty! ’Sias!” And as the frightened servants came running at her call, the women from the kitchen, the man from the lawn, they found the young mistress down on the floor at the feet of the dead master, with her hands clasped around his knees and her head bowed upon them, sobbing as if her heart must break. Tears had come and broken the trance of sorrow. “Run for the doctor! Run for Mr. Stuart! Run all of you!” cried Mrs. Pole. And the servants ran in all directions to spread the news or to bring efficient help. Mrs. Pole went to Palma. “Get up, my dear child! Let me help you up.” “Don’t—don’t,” gasped Palma in a smothered tone. “Come, come with me,” persisted the woman, taking hold of her arm and trying to lift her. “Leave me! Leave me!” cried the mourner, clinging the closer to her dead, and continuing obdurate to all entreaty. Cleve Stuart, found and summoned by ’Sias, soon came galloping up to the house, threw himself off his horse and hurried up on the porch. One look of awe, sorrow and reverence to the changed face of his uncle showed him what had happened. Then he looked on his wife. “Make her get up, sir. Do make her get up. I can’t get her to move from that!” sobbed Mrs. Pole. “When did this happen?” inquired Stuart in a low tone.