Her father! the gray old man who was toiling through this summer's heat, in his deserted home, as he had through so many summers gone! he who had never given her an impatient or angry word--whose pride and joy she still was! The stroke would be severe upon him. Yet he would not refuse comfort. There were still left to him his boys--fine, manly fellows; Jeannie and his baby grandchild--his lost daughter's gift. Tears rushed into the hot, wild eyes with this last image, but she would not let them flow. "Is it not better that I should leave her now, when the parting will give her no pain, when one little week will blot out my memory entirely from her mind, than to wait until she can recollect and miss me?" The music had ceased. The revellers had dropped away faster than they had collected, when once the movement was made to retire. The murmur of the deep was the only sound abroad; the stars were the only sentinels. Sarah arose, threw a shawl over her head, and cautiously unlocked the door. A strong rush of air blew it from her hold, and as she caught it, to draw it after her, she trod upon some object lying on the floor. Mechanically she stooped to pick it up. It was an infant's shoe, a dainty little gaiter, that peeped, during the day, from beneath Baby Belle's white skirt. To Sarah's touch it seemed that the lining still retained the warmth of the child's foot. Never, oh, never, was the patter of those baby feet to make glad music for the mother's ear! Others must guide and sustain her trial steps; others smooth her daily path; others direct the inexperience of the girl in the perilous passes where that mother had fallen and perished! "Oh, may I not bless her before I leave her forever?" she cried to stern Resolution. And Conscience rejoined, with meaning severity: "Is it you who would breathe a blessing above her purity?" "Suffer me, then, to take the farewell look I dared not grant myself before!" And while Resolution faltered at the impassioned appeal, she opened the nursery door and stole to the side of the crib. The night-lamp shed a feeble halo over the table whereon it stood. The rest of the room was in darkness. Mary's light bedstead was close to the crib. Was hers that hard, short breathing, that sent a start and chill through the hearer? A touch to the lamp threw a blaze of light over nurse and child. A sharp cry rang through the chamber. "Mary, Mary! get up!" The girl sprang to the floor before she comprehended the meaning of the alarm. Mrs. Hammond had sunk into a chair beside the crib, from which she had snatched her infant. Baby Belle's head was strained back; her hands clenched; her limbs stiffened in a death-like spasm. The eyes were rolled out of sight under the lids; and the four little teeth--her "most precious pearls," the fond mother had called them--were hard-locked within the purple lips.