Death’s night comes; it may now be near: Lord, if our hopes are fixed on Thee, Oh, how calm will that sleep appear! Oh, how sweet will the waking be! Whether we sleep, or whether we wake, We are His who gave His life for our sake. The eyes of Ernest gradually closed ere the hymn was ended; he lay still in deep slumbers; Charles almost trembled lest that slumber should be death. * * * * * “I have bidden farewell to Ben; I must see his brother also. Dying words have sometimes weight—he may listen to me now. Please raise me higher on my pillow, and call in Jack to see me.” Such were the words of Ernest, on awaking one morning more free from pain than he had been since his fall. “The interview will not be too much for you, Ernest?” said Mr. Ewart, anxiously. “Oh, no; nothing can hurt me now. I feel as though nothing could agitate me again. Have you seen my cousin lately?” he added. “Yes; only this morning. She feels this trial much.” “Does she?” exclaimed Ernest, a look of animation and pleasure lighting up his deep sunken eye. “Oh, tell Clementina that she must come to me too. My heart is so full of thoughts—if I only could utter them! Would that I had the tongue of an angel, but for this one day—before I am silenced by death!” “Lawless is at the door, as you wished,” said Charles. “Pray, then, leave us alone together for a few minutes, and then return with Clementina, dear brother, if she is not afraid to come near a death-bed; it will be a new and a strange scene to her.” Jack stood at the door, as if fearful to come in, like the sinner who dreads that he is beyond reach of hope. He could hardly believe himself to be an object of deep interest to one whom he had so cruelly wronged and insulted, for there was nothing in his own corrupted heart to lead him to understand free mercy and goodness. There was something painfully oppressive to the boy in the aspect of that darkened room, coming out, as he did, from the bright sunshine. The noiseless manner in which Mr. Ewart and Charles quitted the apartment; the solemn stillness that pervaded the place; the look of the little table beside the bed, covered with things that reminded of illness and pain; the appearance of the sufferer himself, almost as colourless as the pillow upon which he lay; the lines of death written on his calm, pale features, so that even a child could not mistake them—all struck a chill to the heart of Lawless. He almost felt as though he were Ernest’s murderer. “Come nearer,” said Fontonore, faintly; “my time is short; I wish to speak to you a few words before I die.” “You must not—shall not, die for me!” exclaimed the boy, in stifled tones of anguish, as he knelt beside the bed.