One hot August day he had gone to its cool, calm shelter, after spending an hour with Elizabeth. Their conversation had been in heaven, and specially of the early dead and blessed, who went in the serenity of the morning; whose love for God had known no treachery, and who took the hand of Jesus and followed him with all their heart. "I think theirs will be the radiant habitations, and the swift obedience of the seraphim. They will know and love and work, as do the angels." "In middle life," said Elizabeth, "heaven seems farther away from us." "True, my sister. At midday the workman may think of the evening, but it is his work that chiefly I engrosses him. Not that the Christian ever forgets God in his labor, but he needs to be on the alert, and to keep every faculty busy. But when the shades of evening gather, he begins to think of going home, and of the result of his labor." "In middle life, too, death amazes us. In the moment of hearing of such a death I always found my heart protest against it. But as I grow older I can feel that all the cords binding to life grow slack. How will it be at the end?" "I think as soon as heaven is seen, we shall tend toward it. We will not go away in sadness, dear sister; we shall depart in the joy of his salvation. If I was by your side, I should not say, "Farewell;" I should speak of our meeting again." Then he went away, and Elizabeth, with a happy face, drew her chair to the open window of her room and lifted her work. It was a piece of silken patch-work, made of dresses and scarfs and sashes, that each had a history in her memory. There were circles from Phyllis's and her own wedding dresses, one from a baby sash of her son Charles. Charles hung his sword from a captain's belt then, but she kept the blue ribbon of his babyhood. There was a bit from Jack's first cravat, and Dick's flag, and her dear husband's wedding vest, and from the small silken shoes of the little Maya--dear little Maya, who "From the nursery door, Climbed up with clay cold feet Unto the golden floor." Any wife and mother can imagine the thousand silken strips that would gather in a life of love. She had often said that in her old age she would sew together these memorials of her sorrow and her joy; and Bessie frequently stood beside her, listening to events which this or that piece called forth, and watching, the gay beautiful squares, as they grew in the summer sunshine and by the glinting winter firelight.