Very naturally, now, her thoughts reverted to her governess, and as she listened to the whispering wind sighing through the trees, she fancied it was the voice of Rose bidding her, “come to the Happy Land.” Sweet little Jessie, it was the voices of angel children, which you heard thus calling through the pines; for from their shining ranks one beauteous form was missing, and they would fain allure it back to its native sky. Come I now to the saddest part of my story. Beneath the evergreens of the sunny South is a little mound, over which the shining stars keep watch, and the cypress spreads its long green boughs, while the children of the plantation, dark browed though they are, tread softly near that grave, which they daily strew with flowers, speaking in low tones of “the Angel of the Pines,” as they term the fair young girl, who passed so suddenly from their midst. It was now nearly five weeks since Mrs. Lansing had fled from the pestilence which walked at noonday, and though it had in a measure abated in the village, there were still frequent cases, and she would not have deemed it safe to return, even if typhoid fever, which she feared nearly as much, had not been in her own house. So there was no alternative but to stay, uncomfortable though she was, for the weather was intensely hot, and she missed many of the luxuries of her home. Still it was healthy there, and this in a measure reconciled her to remain. Occasionally, it is true, she heard rumors of the cholera, on some distant plantation, but it seldom visited the pine regions—it would not come there; she was sure of that; and secure in this belief, she rested in comparative quiet, while each day the heat became more and more intense. The sun came up red, fiery, and heated like a furnace; the clouds gave forth no rain; the brooks were dried up; the leaves withered upon the trees, while the air was full of humming insects, which at night fed upon their helpless, sleeping victims. At the close of one of these scorching, sultry days, Mrs. Lansing and Ada sat upon the piazza, panting for a breath of pure, cool air. At the side of each stood a negro girl, industriously fanning their mistresses, who scolded them as if they were to blame, because the air thus set in motion was hot and burning as the winds which blow over the great desert of Sahara. As they sat there thus, an old man came up from the negro quarters, saying “his woman done got sick wid the cramps,” and he wished “his mistis jest come down see her.”