For a moment Mrs. Wentworth gazed upon this last momento of long past happiness, and a spasm of grief contracted her features. It passed away, however, in an instant, and she laid the dress across the dead body of her child. Drawing a chair to the bedside, she took from her pocket a spool of thread, some needles and her scissors. Selecting one of the needles, she thread it, and pinning it in the body of her dress, removed the wedding gown from the body of her child, and prepared to make a shroud of it. Rapidly she worked at her task, and before darkness had set in, the burial garment was completed, and the body of Ella was enclosed in the last robe she would wear on earth. The body of the dead child looked beautiful. The snowy folds of the dress were looped up with the orange blossoms which Mrs. Wentworth had restored to their natural beauty. On her cold, yet lovely brow, a wreath of the same flowers was placed, while in her hand was placed a tiny ivory cross, that Ella had worn around her neck while living. The transformation was complete. The dress of the young and blooming bride had become the habiliments of the dead child, and the orange blossoms that rested on its folds and on the brow of Ella, were not more emblematical for the dead than they had been for the living. "Oh! how pretty sister looks," exclaimed the little boy, who could not comprehend why the dead body lie so motionless and stiff. "Wake her up, mother," he continued, "she looks so pretty that I want her to stand up and see herself." Mrs. Wentworth smiled sorrowfully at her son's remarks, but she did not remove her features from the dead. The saint-like expression of her child, and the placid and beautiful face that lay before her devoid of animation, had awoke the benumbed feelings of affection within her. A bright light flashed across her brain, and the long pent up tears, were about to flow, when the door was widely opened, and a dark shadow spread itself over the body of Ella. Checking her emotion, Mrs. Wentworth looked around and beheld the figure of Mr. Swartz, accompanied by two police officers. She spoke not a word at first, for in an instant the cause of his visit was known. One look she gave him, which sunk into the inmost depths of his soul; then turning to the dead child, she slowly extended her hand and pointed to it. "There," she said at last. "Look there," and her face again wore its former colorless and rigid aspect. CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. IMPRISONMENT OF THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.