Many and many a time during that mourning week did Bessie, spent and weary with weeping, recall those words that her darling had uttered, "I don't want to get well, Bessie; I should have all the old miserable feelings over again." And even in her desolation Bessie would not have called her back. "My Hatty has gone," she wrote to Edna, in those first days of her loss. "I shall never see her sweet face again until we meet in Paradise. I shall never hear her loving voice; but for her own sake I cannot wish her back. Her life was not a happy one; no one could make it happy, it was shadowed by physical depression. She had much to bear, and it was not always easy to understand her; it was difficult for her to give expression to the nameless fears, and the strange, morbid feelings that made life so difficult. She loved us all so much, but even her love made her wretched, for a careless word or a thoughtless speech rankled in her mind for days, and it was not easy to extract the sting; she was too sensitive, too highly organized for daily life; she made herself miserable about trifles. I know she could not help it, poor darling, and father says so too. Oh, how I miss her. But God only knows that, and I dare say He will comfort me in His own good time. Mother is ill; she is never strong, and the nursing and grief have broken her down, so we must all think of her. Pray for us all, dear Edna, for these are sorrowful days. I do not forget you, but I seem to look at you through the mist of years; still, I am always your loving friend, "BESSIE." CHAPTER XIX. "I MUST NOT THINK OF MYSELF." Bessie's words to Edna had been strangely prophetical--"Trouble may come to me one day;" it had come already, in its most crushing form. The bond of sisterhood is very strong; it has peculiar and precious privileges, apart from other relationships; a sort of twinship of sympathy unites many sisters who have grown up together. Their thoughts and interests are seldom apart. All their little pleasures, their minor griefs, youthful hopes, disappointments, are shared with each other. They move together through the opening years of their life. Sometimes old age finds them still together, tottering hand in hand to the grave. Of all her sisters, Bessie could least spare Hatty, and her death left a void in the girl's life that was very difficult to fill. From the first, Bessie had accepted the responsibility of Hatty. Hatty's peculiar temperament, her bad health and unequal spirits, had set her apart from the other members of the family, who were all strong and cheerful and full of life.