"A whole year passed in this manner without bringing any thing new; but the beautiful patience of the Silver-Voice was at length after a fashion rewarded. Better had it been, perhaps, for her, had her soul been wafted away in some sad song. She was standing one evening, long after the sun had set, filling the air with her plaintive notes, and calling, as usual, upon her sister; suddenly there rose a cry--a piercing, terrible cry, such as no mortal ever utters but when the sanctuary of life is invaded. At that awful sound the Silver-Voice was struck dumb. She stood listening like a gazelle when it hears the howl of a wolf afar off upon the desert. The wild accents seemed to hang for a moment over her, and then fell into her ear, moulding, as they fell, into the words, "My sister!" How it came to pass she could not tell: over the parapet, along a crumbling wall, across a ruined house, she passed as if by magic, until she fell like a moonbeam through an open window, and saw upon a rich couch the form of an expiring woman lying. It was her sister Zoë. The blow had been too well aimed: it had gone to her heart, and the life-blood bubbled rapidly forth between her white fingers, which she pressed, to her side. One eloquent glance, in which eyes mingled with eyes, while lips hung upon lips, was exchanged. There was not time, neither was there need, to tell their stories in any other way. The dying woman made one effort, pointed to a cradle that stood under a cloud of gauze curtains in a corner, then smiled a long, impassioned smile of recognition, of gratitude, and of love, seemed to wander a little back in memory, murmured some pleasant sounds, and was still.