She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that night, and when she woke I was preparing it. "Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can be tipped back?" "Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?" "Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping together." At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never left the baby's face. She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each other. "I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning." Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep.