The soliloquy was interrupted by the return of Mrs. Halliburton. Almost immediately afterwards some visitors came in--Mary Ashley and Anna Lynn. It was the first time Mary had been there, and she had come to bring Janey some more books. She was one of those graceful children whom it is pleasant to look at. A contrast in attire she presented to the little Quakeress, with her silk dress, her straw hat, trimmed with a wreath of flowers and white ribbons, her dark curls falling beneath it. She was much younger than her brother Henry; but there was a great resemblance between them--in the refined features, the bright complexion, and the soft dark eyes. Somehow, through a remark made by Dobbs, the conversation turned upon Jane's inability to recover; and Mary Ashley heard with extreme wonder that death was not dreaded. "Her ma has taught her different," was Dobbs's comment. "Mamma takes great pains with us," observed Mary; "but I should not like to die. How is it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Halliburton. "Jane is not much older than I, and yet she does not dread it!" "My dear," was the reply, "I think it is simply this. Those whom God is intending to take from the world, He often, in His mercy and wisdom, weans from the love of it. You are healthy and strong, and the world is pleasant to you. Jane has been so long weak and ill that she no longer finds enjoyment in it; and this naturally causes her to look beyond this world to the rest and peace of the next. All things are well ordered." Mary Ashley began to think they must be. Chattering Anna, vain Anna, sat gazing at Mary's pretty hat, her drooping curls; none, except Anna herself, knew with what envious longing. Anna, at any rate, was not tired of the world. The end grew nearer and nearer. There came a day when Jane did not get up; there came a second, and a third. On the fourth morning, Janey, who had passed a comfortable night, compared with some nights which had preceded it, was sitting up in bed when her brothers came in from school. They hurried over their breakfast and ran up to her, carrying the remains of it in their hands. The first few minutes after breakfast had always been devoted by Jane to reading to her children; in spite of her necessity for close working they were so devoted still. "I will read here this morning," she observed, as the boys stood around the bed. "Mamma," interrupted Janey, "read about the holy city, in the Book of Revelation." Mrs. Halliburton turned to the twenty-first chapter, and had read to the twenty-third verse--"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof"--when Jane suddenly started forward in bed, her eyes fixed on some opposite point. Mrs. Halliburton paused, and endeavoured to put her gently back again. "Oh, mamma, don't keep me!" she said in a strangely thrilling tone; "don't keep me! I see the light! I see papa!"