"This," replied Marion, with one of her sweet smiles, "is because your ideas of death have been, from the first, confused and erroneous. You thought of the cold and pulseless body; the pale winding-sheet; the narrow coffin, and the deep, dark grave. But, I do not let my thoughts rest on these. To me, death involves the idea of eternal life. I cannot think of the one without the other. Should the chrysalis tremble at the coming change?--the dull worm in its cerements shrink from the moment when, ordained by nature, it must rise into a new life, and expand its wings in the sunny air? How much less cause have I to tremble and shrink back as the hour approaches when this mortal is to put on immortality?" "Yours is a beautiful faith," said Anna. "And its effects, as seen now that the hour from which all shrink approaches, are strongly corroborative of its truth." "It is beautiful because it is true," replied Marion. "There is no real beauty that is not the form of something good and true." "If I were as good as you, I might not shrink from death," remarked Anna, with a transient sigh. "I hope you are better than I am, dear; and think you are," said Marion. "Oh, no!" quickly returned Anna. "Do you purpose evil in your heart?" asked Marion, seriously. Anna seemed half surprised at the question. "Evil! Evil! I hope not," she replied, as a shadow came over her face. "It is an evil purpose only that should make us fear death, Anna; for therein lies the only cause of fear. Death, to those who love themselves and the world above every thing else, is a sad event; but to those who love God and their neighbour supremely, it is a happy change." "That is all true," said Anna. "My reason assents to it. But, in the act of dissolution--in that mortal strife, when the soul separates itself from the body--there is something from which my heart shrinks and trembles down fainting in my bosom. Ah! In the crossing of that bourne from which no traveller has returned to tell us of what is beyond, there is something that more than half appals me."