He lifted me in his arms and carried me to the open door of an adjoining cabin. Here on a mattress lay Estelle. A colored woman of remarkable aspect, and with straight black hair, was kneeling by her side. This woman Peek addressed as Esha. The little plain gold cross which Estelle used to wear on the ribbon round her neck was now made to serve as the emblem of one of the last sacraments of her religion. At her request, Esha held it, pinned to the ribbon, before her eyes. On a rude table near by, two candles were burning. Estelle’s hands were clasped upon her bosom, and she lay intently regarding the cross, while her lips moved in prayer. “Try to lib, darlin’,” interrupted Esha; “try to lib,—dat’s a good darlin’! Only try, an’ yer kn do it easy.” Estelle took the little cross in her hand and kissed it, then said to Esha, “Give this, with a lock of my hair, to—” Before she could pronounce my name, I rallied my strength, and, with an irrepressible cry of grief, quitted Peek’s support, and rushed to her side. I spoke her name. I took her dear head in my hands. She turned on me eyes beaming with an immortal affection. A celestial smile irradiated her face. Her lips pouted as if pleading for a kiss. I obeyed the invitation, and she acknowledged my compliance by an affirmative motion of the head; a motion that was playful even in that supreme moment. “My own darling!” she murmured; “I knew you would come. O my poor, suffering darling!” Then, with a sudden effort, she threw her arms about my neck, and, drawing me closer down to her bosom, said, in sweet, low tones of tenderness: “Love me still as among the living. I do not die. The body dies. I do not die. Love cannot die. Who believes in death, never loved. You may not see _me_, but I shall see _you_. So be a good boy. Do good to all. Love all; so shall you love me the better. I do not part with my love. I take it where it will grow and grow, so as to be all the more fit to welcome my darling. Carrying my love, I carry my heaven with me. It would not be heaven without my love. I have been with my father and mother. So beautiful they are! And such music I have heard! There! Lay your cheek on my bare bosom. So! You do not hurt me. Closer! closer! _Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!_”[19] Thus murmuring a line from a Latin poem which she had learnt in the convent where her childhood was passed, her pure spirit, without a struggle or a throe of pain, disentangled itself from its lovely mortal mould, and rose into the purer ether of the immortal life. ----------