A radiant smile lighted up her sweet face as she uttered these words, and her delicate cheek flushed with the lovely but fatal hectic which lurked in her system, and set the seal of truth upon her prophecy. As she turned slowly from the window she saw her father move—he had awakened, and she hastened toward the bed. The sick man looked upon his child with a vacant eye, as she tenderly bent over him. She saw that his lips were parched, and pouring some liquid into a cup, she held it to him, and he drank eagerly. “Have you slept well, dear papa?” she gently asked, as she tenderly arranged his pillow, and smoothed the thin hair from his furrowed brow. He turned his dreamy eye toward her, and it brightened up with loving recollections, as he scanned in silence the features so dear, and so familiar to his heart. “Slept!” he said at last, in a low and feeble voice. “I have been sailing, Rosalie, on a broad, bright river, and angels guided my vessel. Adalia was in my arms, and she, your angel mother, sat beside me, with her patient smile, and her sunny eye that, with its look of love, ever chased the shadows from my heart.” “Dear papa, you weary yourself,” said the anxious girl, as he paused, laboring for breath. “Rest awhile, for I know it all—mamma was with you, and you were happy.” “Yes,” he answered with animation, “I was happy. I felt her hand in mine, and we sailed onward and onward, far away from all sights and sounds of earth, into a glorious atmosphere, golden with the light of heaven—and all around us was _His_ near presence, wrapping our souls in a garment of blessedness.” “It is always round us, dear papa,” said Rosalie, alarmed at his increasing excitement; “always—even here in this poor room, where we seem left to drink the cup of poverty alone.” “A dream!—but was it _only_ a _dream_ then, Rosalie?” murmured the sick man with a troubled look. “No, dear papa; but a visitation of angels to cheer your slumbers, and whisper to your spirit of the peace and bliss of heaven,” said the gentle daughter, imprinting a kiss of love upon his cheek. “Yes, yes; and to tell me of her guardian care,” he said; then in a clear voice, and with a burst of joyful triumph he repeated— “‘Rejoice, thou troubled spirit! though in pain, If thou canst take, even here, so sweet a flight; What wilt thou in thy native seats again.’” And so soothed by the cheering vision, the invalid sank again into a deep and peaceful slumber, which was again brightened, as the sleep of the departing often is, by glimpses of that fair spirit-land in which the sufferer is so soon to awaken.