And in this fate was kind to her, though in that awful way in which fate--say rather Providence--often works; cutting, with one sharp blow, some knot that our poor, feeble, mortal fingers have been long laboring at in vain, or making that which seemed impossible to do the most natural, easy, and only thing to be done. How strangely often in human life "one woe doth tread upon the other's heel!" How continually, while one of those small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that external energy counteracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with another's sufferings stifles all personal pain. That truth about sorrows coming "in battalions" may have a divine meaning in it--may be one of those mysterious laws which guide the universe--laws that we can only trace in fragments, and guess at the rest, believing, in deep humility, that one day we shall "know even as we are known." Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had time to collect herself, and realize in her poor confused mind that she had indeed said good by to Tom, given him up and parted from him forever, she was summoned to her mistress's room, there to hold a colloquy outside the door with the seriously-perplexed nurse. One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, after all seems safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, and end by carrying away, remorseless, the young wife from her scarcely tasted bliss, the mother of many children from her close circle of happy duties and yearning loves. Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold or been too much excited, or, in the overconfidence of her recovery, some slight neglect had occurred--some trifle which nobody thinks of till afterward, and which yet proves the fatal cause, "the little pin" that "Bores through the castle wall" of mortal hope, and King Death enters in all his awful state. Nobody knew it or dreaded it; for though Mrs. Ascott was certainly ill, she was not at first very ill; and there being no telegraphs in those days no one thought of sending for either her husband or her sisters. But that very hour, when Elizabeth went up to her mistress, and saw the flush on her cheek and the rest-less expression of her eye, King Death had secretly crept in at the door of the mansion in Russell Square. The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. She said little, except once, looking up uneasily-- "I don't feel quite myself, Elizabeth." And when her servant soothed her in the long-familiar way, telling her she would be better in the morning, she smiled contentedly, and turned to go to sleep. Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat behind the curtain, motionless, for an hour or more. Toward the middle of the night, when her baby was brought to her, and the child instinctively refused its natural food, and began screaming violently, Mrs. Ascott's troubled look returned.