“The frost lies so thickly on the window-panes that you cannot see it, even when the light comes, Jamie,” said his friend, vainly trying to gratify the boy's wish. “The sun will melt it soon, and I can wait,--I can wait, Walter; it's but a little while;” and Jamie, with a patient smile, turned his face to the dim window and lay silent. Higher and higher crept the sunshine till it shone through the frostwork on the boy's bright head; his bird awoke and carolled blithely, but he never stirred. “Asleep at last, poor, tired little Jamie; I'll not wake him till the day is warmer;” and Walter, folding the coverings closer over the quiet figure, sat beside it, waiting till it should wake. “Jamie dear, look up, and see how beautifully your last rose has blossomed in the night when least we looked for it;” and Bess came smiling in with the one white rose, so fragrant but so frail. Jamie did not turn to greet her, for all frost had melted from the boy's life now; another flower had blossomed in the early dawn, and though the patient face upon the pillow was bathed in sunshine, little Jamie was not there to see it gleaming on the cross. God had remembered him. Spring showers had made the small mound green, and scattered flowers in the churchyard. Sister Bess sat in the silent room alone, working still, but pausing often to wipe away the tears that fell upon a letter on her knee. Steps came springing up the narrow stairs and Walter entered with a beaming face, to show the first rich earnings of his pen, and ask her to rest from her long labor in the shelter of his love. “Dear Bess, what troubles you? Let me share your sorrow and try to lighten it,” he cried with anxious tenderness, sitting beside her on the little couch where Jamie fell asleep. In the frank face smiling on her, the girl's innocent eyes read nothing but the friendly interest of a brother, and remembering his care and kindness, she forgot her womanly timidity in her great longing for sympathy, and freely told him all. Told him of the lover she left years ago to cling to Jamie, and how this lover went across the sea hoping to increase his little fortune that the helpless brother might be sheltered for love of her. How misfortune followed him, and when she looked to welcome back a prosperous man, there came a letter saying that all was lost and he must begin the world anew and win a home to offer her before he claimed the heart so faithful to him all these years. “He writes so tenderly and bears his disappointment bravely for my sake; but it is very hard to see our happiness deferred again when such a little sum would give us to each other.”