She sunk back exhausted to the pillow, and her breath came in painful gasps from her parted lips, while her hands moved about spasmodically on the white counterpane--the excitement of the last hour had been too much for her weakened condition. She lay thus for several moments, and then suddenly started from her recumbent position, and sat upright in the bed. A glorious lustre broke through the mist that whelmed her eyes, and a faint color sprung to her pallid cheek. She clasped her daughter in her arms with an hysterical sob; looked wildly into her face; pressed a burning, quivering kiss upon her forehead, and then her lips gave forth fragments of speech, broken, but beautiful. But this did not last long; a weakness came over her almost preternatural strength; she loosened the embrace that circled her child; the color fled her cheek, the brightness her eye; the death-rattle rung out shrilly upon the air, and she fell back motionless to the bed. They looked upon her countenance--a single glance was sufficient--it was cold, calm, passionless--the seal of the grave was upon it. * * * * * The gloom of death had shadowed that cottage for two days, and now it was desolate indeed. The stealthy tread of those who came to gaze upon the dead and prepare its burial, no longer broke the solemn hush that brooded over the dwelling. The departed was in truth the departed--they had borne her over the threshold of her home, and laid her remains in the narrow house where all must one day repose--a plain head-board alone marking the grave in which slumbered what was once Eliza Williams. Like others, she had died sincerely mourned by many--like others, futurity would leave no memorial to tell that she had ever existed. Decay, and rude hands, and careless feet, after the lapse of years, would mar her last resting-place, as many in the grave-yard had already been marred, but the form below could never know nor feel the injury--she slept, and would sleep, as sleep the dead, until the trump of Gabriel awakens and clothes the dry bones in the habiliments of another world. And now they were alone--the mother and her adopted daughter, making preparations for a final departure from that desolate old homestead. The ashes lay cold upon the hearth-stone, and a gloomy loneliness reigned throughout the whole building, flinging a pall over the feelings of Widow White. A chill crept over her as the large gray cat came purring to her side, and rubbed his soft coat against her ankle; and tears sprung to her eyes when she saw the countenance of the little child wearing such a sad and mournful expression, and she vowed in her heart that no blight should come over her youthful prospects, if it were in her power to prevent it. Ere long, the necessary preparations were completed, and the two bade a final adieu to the lonely dwelling, and passed slowly along the road toward the mansion of Widow White. PART II.