But meantime over our little world at Netherby that awful Presence was hovering to which all the outward terrors that may, or may not surround it, the midnight dagger, the headsman's axe, the crowds of eager gazers around the scaffold, are but as the trappings of the warrior to his sword, or the glitter of the axe to its edge. Death was silently wearing away the little remaining strength of Lady Lucy Davenant. There was one amongst us nearer the beginning of the new life than any of us knew, so near that the roar of the political tempest around us was hushed ere it reached her chamber, and she lay on the threshold of the other world almost as unconscious of the storms of this as our little infant Magdalene, whose cradle she used to delight to have beside her. I can remember, as if it were yesterday, the dim tender smile with which she used to watch the babe asleep beside her. Once she said to me,-- "There seems to me something strangely alike, Olive, in the darling's place and mine, though to all outward seeming so different. I lie and look at her and think of the angels in the Percy Shrine at the Minster at Beverly, how they bear in their arms to Jesus a little helpless new-born soul, and He stretches out His hands to take it to His bosom--a soul new-born from death, to the deathless life with Him. "Sometimes it seems like that, Olive, what is coming to me; so great and perfect the change. Sometimes so easy and simple; more like laying aside garments we have worn through the night bathing in the water of life, and stepping refreshed, strong, and 'clothed in raiment clean and white'--into the next chamber, to meet Him who awaits us there. So little the change, for we have in us the treasure we shall bear with us. The new eternal life is in our Lord, and not in any state or time; and since we have him with us, both here and there, it seems only like stepping a little further into the Father's house--from the threshold to the inner chambers--and hearing Him nearer and seeing Him more clearly. Tell Lettice I had these comforting thoughts, Olive," she would say; "I cannot speak to her, she is too much moved; and she wants me to say I long to stay on earth, and I cannot, Olive. I cannot feel at home any more here since Harry is gone. And I am so weak and sinful, I may do harm, as well as good by staying longer, even to Lettice, poor tender child. The world--at least the world here in England--is very dark to me. And sometimes I think it will all soon end, not this war only, but all wars, and the kingdom come for which the Church prayed so long, and the glorious Epiphany."