It was a mournful little household in Brierwood Cottage. Mr. Chester had refused to leave the place where his child was. Little Nan still lay in Emmie's room. Queenie had given up hers, and had betaken herself to Patience's little chamber. Emmie was still at Church-Stile House. Queenie used to go out to her work, and leave Gertrude alone with her husband. On her return she would see them sitting hand in hand talking softly of their child. Nothing but his wife's presence seemed to console the unhappy father. Only she or Langley could rouse him or induce him to take food. Once when they thought they were alone Queenie saw Gertrude take her husband's head between her hands and kiss it softly, and lay it on her breast. "Harry, my poor Harry," she whispered over him, with a perfect passion of pity. Did the warning voice within her admonish her that she too must soon leave him and join her child? Langley came and went on brief ministering errands, but she never remained long. Now and then, when all was quiet in the little room above, she would go in and kneel down beside the baby coffin. What sort of prayers ascended from that lonely heart that had missed its way so early in life? "Little Nan, I would have laid down my life to have saved yours," she whispered, pressing her lips to the wood. One day Captain Fawcett stood there with Emmie beside him. Emmie's great blue eyes dilated and widened with awe and wonder at the sight of the tiny white face. The little coffin, the bed, the room were perfectly strewn with flowers. Great boxes of rare hot-house flowers sent from Carlisle, and directed in an unknown hand, had arrived that morning at the cottage. Gertrude was sitting weaving a cross in the room down-stairs, while her husband watched her. "Is that Nan? it looks like a stone angel lying under a quilt of roses and lilies. It is just like a little angel that I used to see in the cathedral," whispered Emmie. "Aye, it is Nan; it is just as my girl looked when her mother dressed her up for the last time in her flowers," returned Captain Fawcett, tremulously. A tear rolled down his grizzled moustache; but Emmie's eyes only widened and grew solemn. "It is a pity, such pretty flowers; and they will have so many there," she continued, reflectively. "Aren't you glad that Alice has all those roses? Do you know, I often dream about your girl. She was like me, you know, only she had long hair. Last night I thought she and Nan came running to meet me; they were laughing so, and their hands were full of roses." "Bless your pretty fancies, my darling. Well, I dream of my little maid often myself, and she always comes to me and says, 'Father.' I can feel her little hand slipping into mine. And then when I wake I am lonesome somehow. Poor little Ailie."