The beautiful destroyer, however, lay in the mother's heart, now paling her cheeks like the early lily, and again scattering over them the rose and the rainbow. Still dreaming of recovery, about eight months after her arrival in Thorndean, death stole over her like a sweet sleep. It was only a few moments before the angel hurled the fatal shaft, that the truth fell upon her soul. She was stretching forth her hand to her work-basket, her lovely child was prattling by her knee, and Mrs. Douglas smiling like a parent upon both, striving to conceal a tear while she smiled, when the breathing of her fair guest became difficult, and the rose, which a moment before bloomed upon her countenance, vanished in a fitful streak. She flung her feeble arms around the neck of her child, who now wept upon her bosom, and exclaimed, "Oh! my Elizabeth, who will protect you now, my poor, poor orphan?" Mrs. Douglas sprang to her assistance. She said she had much to tell, and endeavoured to speak; but a gurgling sound only was heard in her throat; she panted for breath; the rosy streaks, deepening into blue, came and went upon her cheeks like the midnight dances of the northern lights; her eyes flashed with a momentary brightness more than mortal, and the spirit fled. The fair orphan still clung to the neck, and kissed the yet warm lips of her dead mother. As yet she was too young to see all the dreariness of the desolation around her; but she was indeed an orphan in the most cruel meaning of the word. Her mother had preserved a mystery over her sorrows and the circumstances of her life, which Mrs. Douglas had never endeavoured to penetrate. And now she was left to be as a mother to the helpless child, for she knew not if she had another friend; and all that she had heard of the mother's history was recorded on the humble stone which she placed over her grave: "_Here resteth the body of Isabella Morton, widow of Captain Morton; she died amongst us a stranger, but beloved_." The whole property to which the fair orphan became heir by the death of her mother did not amount to fifty pounds, and amongst the property no document was found which could throw any light upon who were her relatives, or if she had any. But the heart of Mrs. Douglas had already adopted her as a daughter; and, circumscribed as her circumstances were, she trusted that He who provided food for the very birds of heaven, would provide the orphan's morsel.