Bessie had realized this and had made Hatty her special charge and duty; but now there was a gap in her daily life, a sense of emptiness and desolation. There was no need now to hurry through her morning's task that she might sit with Hatty. When she went out, there was no Hatty to watch for her return and listen to all her descriptions of what she had seen. At night, when Bessie went upstairs, she would creep softly into a certain empty room, which was dearer to her than any other room. Hatty's little gowns, her few girlish possessions, were all locked away in the wardrobe; but her Bible and Prayer-book, and her shabby little writing-case, lay on the table. Bessie would pull up the blinds, and kneel down by the low bed; she liked to say her prayers in that room. Sometimes as she prayed the sense of her sister's presence would come over her strongly; she could almost feel the touch of the thin little hands that had so often toiled in her service. Hatty's large wistful eyes seemed to look lovingly out of the darkness. "Oh! my Hatty, are you near me?" she would sob; but there was no answer out of the silence. Who has not tasted the bitterness of these moments, when the craving for the loved presence seems insupportable, hardly to be borne? How our poor human hearts rebel against the unnatural separation, until the thrilling words make themselves heard: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Oh, yes, of the living! Cease, then, to mourn, poor soul, as one without hope. Somewhere, not here, but in the larger room of a purified existence, your beloved one lives, breathes, nay, thinks of thee. Be comforted; one day we shall meet them, and the friendship of time will become the love of eternity. Bessie strove hard not to be selfish in her grief. Her mother's strength, never very great, had broken down utterly for a time. Bessie knew that this failure of power added to her father's anxiety, and in the most touching manner she tried to console them both. When she looked back at these sad days, Bessie owned that she had been marvellously helped and supported. With the day's burden had come daily strength to bear it. "I must not think of myself; I must think of father and mother," she would say, as she awoke in the morning with that blank sense of loss. "There is nothing to do for Hatty now, but there are others who need me." And this thought helped her through the day.