Rosalind took her up trembling and carried her to bed. The tears had begun to come, and the terrible iron hand that had seemed to press upon her heart relaxed a little. She kissed the child with quivering lips. “I think it must be so,” she said. “We will say our prayers, and ask God, if there is anything she wants us to do, to show us what it is.” Rosalind’s lips quivered so that she had to stop to subdue herself, to make her voice audible. “Now she is dead, she can come back to us. We ought to be glad. Why should we be frightened for poor mamma? She could not come back to us living, but now, when she is dead--” “Miss Rosalind,” said the nurse, “I don’t know what you are saying, but you will put the child off her sleep and she won’t close an eye all the night.” “Amy, that would grieve mamma,” said the girl. “We must not do anything to vex her now that she has come back.” And so strong is nature and so weak is childhood, that Amy, wearied and soothed and comforted, with Rosalind’s voice in her ears and the cheerful light within sight, did drop to sleep, sobbing, before half an hour was out. Then Rosalind bathed the tears from her eyes, and, hurrying through the long passages with that impulse to tell her tale to some one which to the simple soul is a condition of life, appeared suddenly in her exaltation and sorrow amid all the noisy groups in the hotel garden. Her head was light with tears and suffering, she scarcely felt the ground she trod upon, or realized what was about her. Her only distinct feeling was that which she uttered with such conviction, leaning her entire weight on Uncle John’s kind arm and lifting her colorless face to his--“Mamma is dead; and she has come back to the children.” How natural it seemed! the only thing to be expected; but Mrs. Lennox gave a loud cry and fell back in her chair, in what she supposed to be a faint, good woman, having happily little experience. It was now that young Everard justified her good opinion of him. He soothed her back out of this half-faint, and, supporting her on his arm, led her up-stairs. “I will see to her; you will be better alone,” he said, as he passed the other group. Even John Trevanion, when he had time to think of it, felt that it was kind, and Aunt Sophy never forgot the touching attention he showed to her, calling her maid, and bringing her eau-de-cologne after he had placed her on the sofa. “He might have been my son,” Mrs. Lennox said; “no nephew was ever so kind.” But when he came out of the room, and stood outside in the lighted corridor, there was nothing tender in the young man’s face. It was pale with passion and a cruel force. He paused for a moment to collect himself, and then, turning along a long passage and up another staircase, made his way, with the determined air of a man who has a desperate undertaking in hand, to an apartment with which he was evidently well acquainted, on the other side of the house. CHAPTER L.