"Oh, wouldn't it be good, Annie--would not it be glorious, Nelly--if I could gather you all up in my arms and take you with me, whither I am going?" he said, with a sort of rapture, looking from his children to his wife and sister. And then, in a gentler tone: "Kneel down, Nelly, and say a prayer, and ask God to forgive us all our sins--_all_, remember,--and to smooth the way for us, so that we may all go to Him." Neither Nelly nor Annie remarked the singular emphasis which accompanied these words. Nelly knelt in their midst, and prayed. As she uttered that simple and child-like prayer, John fixed his eyes upon her face, and muttered, "And so he took a great _interest_ in you, and would dress you gayly, would he?" Then he said, aloud, in a kind of wild and wandering way--"Now we've had our last supper, and our last prayer. It will soon be time for us to go. Call me, love, in time for the cars." He paused, and raised his hand to his forehead,-- "Don't cry, Annie; my mind wanders a little--that's all. I want rest. I'll take a little sleep in the chair, and you and Nelly, and the children, lay down in the bed. And let me kiss the children, and do you all kiss me--" The young mother lifted the little boy and girl, and they pressed their kiss upon the lips of the dying man. Then the wife and the sister; their tears mingling on his face, as their lips were pressed by turns to his lips and brow. "Come, Nelly," whispered the wife, "we'll lay down, but we will not sleep. He will take a little rest if he thinks we are sleeping." Presently the sister and the wife, with the children near them, were resting on the bed, their hands silently joined. They conversed in low tones, while the children fell gently asleep. But gradually their conversation died away in inarticulate whispers; and they also slept. And the artist--did he sleep? By no means. Sitting erect in his arm-chair, his back toward the bed, and his eyes every instant glittering bright and brighter, he listened intently to the low whispers of his wife and sister. "At last they sleep!" he cried, as the sound of their calm, regular breathing struck his ears. "They sleep--they sleep! They sleep--wife, sister, children; Annie, Nelly, little John, and little Annie,--they all sleep." And he burst into tears. But his death-stricken face was radiant through his tears:--radiant with intense joy. John sat silently contemplating a small image of white marble, which he had taken from one of the drawers of the bureau. It represented the MASTER on the cross. "Better go to God, and trust him, than trust to the mercy of man," he frequently murmured.