Thus she chatted away during our drive home. We bade her good night at Mr. Lincoln’s door, and the carriage drove away, bearing us to our own homes—one short half-hour after, and the same carriage bore me back again to that house in deep affliction. Agnes, after bidding us good night, entered the hall, and was proceeding up the stair-case to her own room, when, as she passed the library, she saw the library light still burning, which was to her a notice of her father’s waiting up for her return. She entered with a light heart and a merry song. Her father was seated in his chair, leaning his head forward on his reading-desk, apparently asleep. She bent over him to awaken him by gentle caresses, but ere her lips touched his brow, the expression of his face startled her. She gave one long, searching look, then uttered a piercing shriek of agony, which startled the whole house. He was dead. There, in that solitary room, his spirit had taken flight, alone, without daughter or friend beside him to receive his parting words of love. Poor Agnes! with what agony she leaned over him—vainly calling on him to speak to her—to look, if only once more, upon his own Agnes. It was a sad sight—this beautiful girl bending over her dead father—her rich drapery falling heavily around her, and her magnificent hair, which had escaped from the circlet of gems which bound it, swept the ground, making her pale face appear still more pallid, as its heavy, dark masses hung over her fair shoulders. Her earnest, heart-rending appeals were terrifying; not a tear flowed from her dark eyes—they seemed distended with agony; and the physicians who had been hastily summoned feared that the shock would deprive her of reason, if not of life. I at last succeeded in leading her away from her father, and, exhausted by her intense grief, she lay for hours in a heavy stupor.