God pardon his wasted, misused life, he groaned, and grant him one single fragment of opportunity more, and he should not be unremembered; and the flicker of a strange smile curved Andrew Calcott's lips as he silently registered this vow. "Are you sleepy or tired, Uncle Andrew?" asked Emmie, rather awe-stricken by the long silence and closed eye-lids, and still more by the smile. "When you lay like that, so still and white," continued the child, "you reminded me of the figure of the old Crusader--a knight I think he was--on the tomb I saw once in church. Do you know what I was thinking about when I watched you?" He shook his head. "I was wondering if you felt afraid--to die, I mean." "Well, child; what then?" regarding her strangely. "I used to be terribly afraid, you know," creeping closer, and whispering confidentially. "When I sat alone in the old garret,--ah, the poor old garret; I don't hate it quite so much now,--and it got dark, and the silence had odd voices in it, I used to think about mamma and want to go to her; only I could not get to her without dying, and that troubled me." "Hush, Emmie," interrupted her sister, softly; but Mr. Calcott waved her aside, and bade her let the child speak, and Queenie drew back again into the shade of the curtain. "I used to sit for ever so long, and fancy how it would be. I fainted once; and then I thought it would be like that, only I was afraid I should feel terribly cold and lonely when I woke and found myself alone in a strange place, however beautiful it might be; and then Queenie took me to see that picture, and after that I did not mind at all." "What picture, little one?" "Of a girl, not much older than I, asleep with her arms so,"--crossing hers gravely over her breast,--"and sliding up a great pathway of light, just as I saw a little boat once floating in the moonlight. Fancy floating asleep between the stars, and right into heaven!" A half-groan answered the child, but she was too absorbed to notice it. "I never forgot the picture; it made me so happy to think of it. I shall not mind dying a bit now; I shall just cross my arms, as the girl did, and shut my eyes, and when I wake up I shall see mamma smiling at the door; and perhaps," finished the child solemnly, "He will come to me, instead of letting me go very far in the great dazzling place to find Him." "Him!" "Our Lord, you know; I shall want to see Him most. Uncle Andrew, when I say my prayers to-night I shall tell Him that you are afraid, and ask Him to let mamma be the first to meet you; and not a great splendid angel with wings, but just mamma, looking, oh, so beautiful! and smiling as she used to smile." "God bless you, child; there, leave me; take her away, or I will not answer for myself. I have the pain again; those drops, quick! Oh, merciful heavens! only the boon of another day, one more day."