In the recess of the beloved bay window Mrs. Helmstedt’s forsaken harp still stood in mournful splendor. The level beams of the setting sun, now shining through this window, touched the harp, drawing from its burnished frame responsive rays, “in lines of golden light.” A moment thus stood the harp in a blaze of quivering glory, and then, as a sheaf that is gathered up, the rays were all withdrawn, and the sun sunk below the horizon. Simultaneously, as if some awful hand had swept its strings, each chord of that harp in swift succession snapped, in a long, wild, wailing diapason of melody, that died in silence with the dying sun, as though all music, light and life went out together, forever. All arose to their feet and looked into each other’s faces, in awe-stricken silence. And the same instant a sudden, prolonged, despairing shriek rang through the house. “It is Margaret! Something has happened!” exclaimed Ralph Houston, breaking the spell. All immediately hurried upstairs with prophetic intimations of what had occurred. They were right. Marguerite Helmstedt was dead, and her daughter was distracted! With matchless heroism Margaret had maintained her self-control until now; but the grief restrained for her idolized mother’s sake now broke all bounds--and raged, a wild, wild storm of sorrow. Who shall dare to approach her with words of comfort? Who, indeed, can console her? Not one of you, well-meaning friends; for you never sounded the depths of woe like hers. Not you, young lover; for in the passionate idolatry of her grief, she feels that to listen to your voice, beloved as it is, would, at this hour, be sacrilege to the presence of the dead. Not even you, holy, eloquent minister of God. Seek not to soothe her sorrow, any one of you. It were vain, and worse than vain. It was a mockery. Can you breathe the breath of life again into the cold bosom of the dead mother that lies in yonder chamber? Can you cause that stilled heart to beat? those closed eyes to open? those silent lips to speak and murmur softly, “My little Margaret, my dove?” In a word, can you raise the dead to life? If not, then go, and trouble her not with your commonplaces. Before the image of an only child, just orphaned of her mother, that merely human comforter who best comprehends her sorrow would stand the most confounded--dumb. Leave her to God. Only He who wounds can heal. That afternoon, late as it was, Dr. Hartley set off for his home, to commence preparations for the burial; as, in accordance with Mrs. Helmstedt’s directions, she was to be laid beside her father and mother, in her ancestral resting-ground at Plover’s Point.