"I do not know, but God does. I pray for her; and I never knew Him to let me pray for the dead. Again and again I have been restrained from praying for those for whom I was in the habit of praying daily. It was so in the case of Maud. Just before the telegram came, announcing her death, I prayed for all the rest of you, but when it came to her turn I was speechless." "Dear little Maud! Now she and mamma are together again." This conversation took place amid many interruptions, while the two sisters prepared their mother's form for the grave with their own hands. She had often alluded to the event of her death, and expressed herself as very weak on the point of being handled by strangers. They nerved themselves, therefore, to render all the last services unaided. Some one tapped at the door. Laura opened it, and a weeping figure tottered in. It was old Mary, bent with grief. No one had thought to send her a dispatch, and she was not in the habit of reading the papers. She had heard the disaster spoken of at market, and come away in her working-dress, just as she was, her basket of provisions in her hand. When her first wild burst of grief was over, Mary said: "Sure she's got her wish, and died sudden. She was always ready to go, and now she's gone. Often's the time I've heard her talk about dying, and I mind a time when she thought she was going, and there was a light in her eye, and 'What d'ye think of that?' says she. I declare, it was just as she looked when she says to me, 'Mary, I'm going to be married, and what d'ye think of that?' says she. Well, I bursted right out, and says I, 'We won't be long separated,' says I, 'for I've got the brown creeturs, awful,' says I, 'and all I'll ask is to live to nurse you, and lay ye out, and then there won't be no more need o' me in this world, and the Lord'll say, 'Old Mary, ye'r a poor, ignorant creetur, and you ain't to be trusted without your mistress, and I may as well let you in when I open the gate for her.'" Indeed, the shattered figure looked as if this blow would be too much for it, as it soon proved to be. "God has taken her away without pain," said Belle, "and in great mercy. It was quite right in you to come as soon as you heard the news." "Ye'll let me do her hair with me own hands, Miss Belle," said old Mary. "She always liked me to do her hair. There, now, ain't she a picture?" She did, indeed, look very beautiful, like one sweetly asleep, not dead. Belle went out to call Frank to see her. He was startled. "Is it not possible that she is living?" he asked. "Why, Frank! After two days in the water?" "But she is so like herself, Laura. Harry is very restless; he has asked for you several times." "I had forgotten there was any Harry!" she said, and moved slowly away.