“Dear child, He will be your Father and your Friend, and life will grow sweet again, and now He knows and feels for all your pain.” A groan of agonizing pain came from the crushed form on the bed. Floy rose and bent over her, the hot tears falling like rain upon the pallid, death-like face. “Mother, mother! how can I bear to see you suffer so?” The white, quivering lips tried to wreathe themselves into a smile, and the anguished eyes looked tenderly into hers. “Beloved child, it will--soon--be over, and I--shall be at home--indeed.” Her eyes sought the doctor’s face. “How long--” “A very few hours at the most.” “Then leave me alone with my child,” she said, speaking in a stronger voice than before. The physician gave Floy some directions in regard to the administering of restoratives, and he and his assistant withdrew. Left alone together, hand clasped in hand, mother and daughter gazed tenderly, mournfully into each other’s eyes, silent tears trickling down the cheeks of both. Then gathering up all her failing energies for the task, Mrs. Kemper told Floy in a few brief sentences the story of her adoption and all they had heard from her true mother’s lips in the little shanty inn at Clearfield Station. Some things she said which, though they fell almost unheeded upon Floy’s ears at the time, afterward, when she had come to care for that unknown mother, were a great comfort. It was pleasant to have learned from the dear dying voice that she who gave her being was unmistakably a lady by birth and breeding, whom even a stranger recognized as gentle and lovable. “I have never been able to remember without a pang of regret and remorse her agony of grief in parting from you,” said Mrs. Kemper. “We have never heard from her, and I think she must have died soon after, for she seemed then in an almost dying condition.” “Oh, then why tell me of her? why, dearest, darling mother, rob me of the belief that I am your own child--yours and father’s?” sobbed the heart-broken girl. The dying eyes looked into hers with yearning tenderness. “Precious one,” she whispered faintly, for her strength was waning, “I would spare you every unneeded pang. But,” she went on with frequent pauses for breath, “the knowledge may some day be of use to you. You may find relatives, my poor, lonely darling. You will find the deed of gift among your father’s papers; your mother’s name is signed to it. There is a will, my husband told me, leaving everything to you and me, all to be yours at my death; so, my--” “Oh, mother, darling mother, what do I care for that now--now when I have lost my father, and you too are going from me!” cried the girl in an agony of grief. “Nothing now, I know,” the mother said with pitying tenderness, “but I am glad my darling will not be left penniless; it would be hard for you to earn your own bread. And the dear home, Floy, will be yours.”