Katie startled me, coming in. "The minister's wife is down-stairs; she wants to know if she may come up," she said. "She is my sister, Katie; yes, I think she may come." I was so relieved to see Sophie; it was getting back to self again, out of which I had gone in this house. I could not help expressing my relief. "There's no one down there to close the house and put away the sad reminders," Sophie said, after asking about my patient. "Some one ought to make it more cheerful down there before Mr. Axtell comes." "Won't you, Sophie, since there's no one else?" I could not yet go into the one room. Death had been too recently there. "I cannot put away the feeling that I am not wanted; but it has no place here, now at least, and I will go," she said. So, with Katie to help, she went to throw an air of light into the rooms below, to waft away the sombre shadows that clouded them, to let in a little of the coming life that must still be lived. And I waited on, up-stairs, and listened, counting each long, low peal of the bell, as it shook out its solemn meaning into the March air, and lost itself in quivering distances. They, the kindly hearts, who had come to perform the last rite, must have moved very slowly on; for I counted out the years that the one gone had lived, ere the bell stopped. Then was silence. In that stillness they were gently lifting down the once more little one,--for are not our dead all little ones, to be watchfully thought of, to be tenderly cared for?--yes, lifting her gently down into the cradle that God hath prepared, and set the sun to rock, until His smile shall awaken, and His arms lift us out of it. The opiate's power was past. Miss Axtell turned upon the pillow, and asked Kate for a glass of water. I carried it to her, lifted her head, and she drank of it without opening her eyes. She asked for Abraham. "He will be here soon," I replied. "I thought it was Kate," she said, calling me my own name. "Have you been here long?" "Since morning." "Is it afternoon?" "Yes, three o'clock." "Why doesn't Abraham come?" "He was here not very long ago," I said, and asked her to take some food, not wishing her to question me. "Food!" she said, "what an odd word! Yes, so that you give it to me in pleasant guise." "What is pleasant to you to-day?" "Something soft and cool." What could I give her? It was very convenient having Sophie so near. This must be Miss Axtell's self who had spoken. Delighted with the change, I ran quickly down to beg of sister Sophie a little skill in preparing some dish suitable to the illness up-stairs. "I'll go and make something," she said. And straightway taking off her hat and cloak, and tossing them just where mine had gone two nights before, she followed willing Katie to regions where I had not been, and I went back to find my patient perfectly herself,--only oblivious of time. She asked me if the various preludes to the sad event had been properly done. I answered that it was over.