Later in the day it came to her that the bereaved one was her early friend, whom now she seldom met. Once Lina would have flown to Mabel's side, and poured into her ear words of comfort, but her heart had grown hard and selfish, and so she only said, "Poor Mabel, she never was as fortunate as I"--and her eye glanced proudly around the elegantly-furnished room, falling at last upon Eddie, whom she clasped to her bosom passionately, but without thought of Him who had decreed that not then should she be written childless. The humble funeral was over. The soft, green turf had been broken, and the bright June flowers had fallen beneath the old sexton's spade as he dug the little grave where Willie Parkman was laid to rest. In the drunkard's home there was again darkness and a silence which would never be broken by the prattle of a childish voice. Sobered, repentant, and heartbroken, the wretched father laid his head in the lap of his faithful wife, beseeching of her to pray that the vow that morning breathed by Willie's coffin and renewed by Willie's grave might be kept unbroken. And she did pray, poor Mabel. With her arms around the neck of the weeping man, she asked that this, her great bereavement, might be sanctified to the salvation of her erring husband. "I will do all things well," again seemed whispered in her ear and Mabel felt assured that Willie had not died in vain. 'Twas hard at first for Robert Parkman to break the chains which bound him, but the remembrance of Willie's touching message--"Tell pa good-by, good-by forever," would rush to his mind whenever he essayed to take the poisonous bowl, and thus was he saved, and when the first day of a new year was ushered in, he stood with Mabel at the altar, and on his upturned brow received the baptismal waters, while the man of God broke to him the bread of life. Much that night they missed their child, and Mabel's tears fell like rain upon the soft, chestnut curl she had severed from his head, but as she looked upon her husband, now strong again in his restored manhood, she murmured--"It was for this that Willie died, and I would not that it should be otherwise."