Our union was blessed by a child--a sweet beautiful little girl, whose presence was a new happiness to us. I have not the power to describe the emotion which filled my heart when this treasure was placed in my arms; Jessie's joy and my mother's may be imagined, but it would be difficult to realise the depth of uncle Bryan's feelings towards the darling. We named her Frances, after Jessie's mother; it was uncle Bryan's wish. His love for the dear little creature became a worship; he was restless and unhappy if a waking hour passed without his seeing her. He nursed her, and prattled to her, and rocked her cradle, and would sit for hours by her side while she was sleeping. She grew to love him, and her beautiful eyes would dilate, and she would wave her dimpled arms when he held out his to her. When she was ten months old, and just when she began to lisp the word so dear to a mother's ear, she was taken from us. 'Ah, how well I remember the sad days that followed! This may sound strange, when you know that a very few months have passed since our bereavement, but it expresses my feeling. Our darling seemed, as it were, to sink into the past, and I saw her ever afterwards, as one in a deep pit looks upwards in the daylight to the heavens and sees a star there. When I am an old man, the memory of this dear child will shine with a clear light among a forest of unremembered days. On the night before she was buried, I walked to the room where she lay in her coffin. I opened the door softly, and saw uncle Bryan on his knees by the coffin's side; his hands were clasped, and on the body of our darling lay an open book from which he was reading. It was the Bible which my mother had given him on our wedding-day. Farewell. END OF VOL. XV. LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jessie Trim, by B. L. Farjeon