Ellen clasped her feeble hands together, while Mr. M----, kneeling by her bed-side, in that low, sweet solemn tone, for which he was so remarkable, breathed forth one of those deep and fervent prayers, which are, as it were, wings to the soul, and bear it up to heaven. Mrs. Loring knelt too, by the weeping Agnes, but her spirit, unused to devotion, lingered below, and her eyes wandered from the heavenly countenance of that man of God, to the death-like face of that child, whose beauty had once been her pride. She remembered how short a time since, she had seen that form float in airy grace before the mirror clothed in fair and flowing robes, and how soon she should see it extended in the awful immobility of death, wrapped in the still winding-sheet, that garment whose folds are never more waved by the breath of life. Then, conscience whispered in her shuddering ear, that, had she acted a mother's part, and disciplined her daughter to prudence and obedience, the blasts of death had not thus blighted her in her early bloom. And it whispered also, that _she_ had no comfort to offer her dying child, in this last conflict of dissolving nature. It was for this world she had lived herself, it was for this world she had taught _her_ to live, but for that untravelled world beyond, she had no guiding hand to extend. It was to a stranger's face the fading eyes of Ellen were directed. It was a stranger's prayers that hallowed her passage to the tomb. The realities of eternity for the first time pressed home, on that vain mother's heart. She felt, too, that _she_ must one day die, and that earth with all its riches and pleasures could yield her no support in that awful moment. That there was something which earth could not impart, which had power to soothe and animate the departing spirit, she knew by the angelic expression of Ellen's upturned eyes, and by the look of unutterable serenity that was diffused over her whole countenance. The voice of Mr. M---- died away on her ear, and an unbroken silence reigned through the apartment. Her stormy grief had been stilled into calmness, during that holy prayer. The eyes of Ellen were now gently closed, and as they rose from their knees they sat down by her side, fearing, even by a deep-drawn breath, to disturb her slumbers. A faint hope began to dawn in the mother's heart, from the placidity and duration of her slumbers. "I have never known her sleep so calm before," said she, in a low voice, to Mr. M----. Mr. M---- bent forward and laid his hand softly on her marble brow. "Calm indeed are her slumbers," said he, looking solemnly upward; "she sleeps now, I trust, in the bosom of her Saviour and her God."