When I had locked the front door, and was creeping up here to my room, my foot crushed something, and a faint, wounded perfume came up. It was the little pink and purple chain. XVI. October 17. “The Lord God a’mighty help us! but His ways are past finding out. What with one thing and another thing, that child without a mother, and you with the crape not yet rusty for Mr. Roy’l, it doos seem to me as if His manner of treating folks beats all! But I tell you this, Miss Mary, my dear; you jest say your prayers reg’lar and _stick to Him_, and He’ll pull you through, sure!” This was what Phœbe said when I told her. November 8. To-night, for the first time, Auntie fairly gave up trying to put Faith to bed. She had insisted on it until now, crawling up by the banisters like a wounded thing. This time she tottered and sank upon the second step. She cried out, feebly; “I am afraid I must give it up to Cousin Mary. Faith!”--the child clung with both hands to her,--“Faith, Faith! Mother’s little girl!” It was the last dear care of motherhood yielded; the last link snapped. It seemed to be the very bitterness of parting. I turned away, that they might bear it together, they two alone. 19th. Yet I think that took away the sting. The days are slipping away now very quietly, and--to her I am sure, and to me for her sake--very happily. She suffers less than I had feared, and she lies upon the bed and smiles, and Faith comes in and plays about, and the cheery morning sunshine falls on everything, and when her strong hours come, we have long talks together, hand clasped in hand. Such pleasant talks! We are quite brave to speak of anything, since we know that what is to be is best just so, and since we fear no parting. I tell her that Faith and I will soon learn to shut our eyes and think we see her, and try to make it _almost_ the same, for she will never be very far away, will she? And then she shakes her head smiling, for it pleases her, and she kisses me softly. Then we dream of how it will all be, and how we shall love and try to please each other quite as much as now. “It will be like going around a corner, don’t you see?” she says. “You will know that I am there all the while, though hidden, and that if you call me I shall hear.” Then we talk of Faith, and of how I shall comfort her; that I shall teach her this, and guard her from that, and how I shall talk with her about heaven and her mother. Sometimes Faith comes up and wants to know what we are saying, and lays poor Mary Ann, sawdust and all, upon the pillow, and wants “her toof-ache kissed away.” So Auntie kisses away the dolly’s “toof-ache”; and kisses the dolly’s little mother, sometimes with a quiver on her lips, but more often with a smile in her eyes, and Faith runs back to play, and her laugh ripples out, and her mother listens--listens--