Joanna Vaux had been cold, stern, and unforgiving to the last; meeting death, unmoved; repenting of no hard thing that she had done throughout her sad, stern life; entering the valley of the shadow of death fearlessly. But that cold death-bed struck upon the heart of the solitary woman who watched beside it, and wakened thoughts and doubts there, which would not rest. She wept now as she thought of it, sadly and quietly, and some murmured words burst from her lips, which sounded like a prayer—not for herself only. Then from her sister’s death-bed she went far, far back—to her own childhood—and a scene rose up before her; one that she had closed her eyes on many a time before, thinking vainly that so she could crush it from her heart, but now she did not try to force it back. The dark room where she sat, the gloomy, sunless house, seemed fading from her sight; the long, long years, with their weary train of shame and suffering—all were forgotten. She was in her old, lost home again—the home where she was born; she saw a sunny lawn, embowered with trees, each tree familiar to her and remembered well, and she herself, a happy child, was standing there; and by her side—with soft arms twining round her, with tender voice, and gentle, loving eyes, and bright hair glittering in the sunlight—there was one! Oh, Bertha! hide thy face and weep. She was so lovely and so loving, so good and true, so patient and so tender, then. “Oh! how could’st thou forget it all, and steel thy heart against her, and vow the cruel vow never to forgive her sin? Thy mother—thy own mother, Bertha! think of it.” A shadow fell across the window beside which she sat, and through her blinding tears Bertha looked up, and saw a woman standing there, holding by the hand a little child. Her face was very pale and worn, with sunken eyes and cheeks; her dress was mean and poor. She looked haggard and weary, and weak and ill; but Bertha knew that it was Gabrielle come back. She could not speak, for such a sudden rush of joy came to her softened heart that all words seemed swallowed up in it; such deep thankfulness for the forgiveness that seemed given her, that her first thought was not a welcome, but a prayer. Gabrielle stood without, looking at her with her sad eyes. “We are alone,” she said, “and very poor; will you take us in?” Sobbing with pity and with joy, Bertha rose from her seat and hurried to the door. Trembling, she drew the wanderers in; then falling on her sister’s neck, her whole heart melted, and she cried, with gushing tears, “Gabrielle, dear sister Gabrielle, I, too, am all alone!” * * * * *