"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Pardon me for asking you. May no shadow of sin or wrong-doing ever darken your door! Lift your heart in prayer. If you have children, teach them to pray. Nothing is more powerful to the young as the example of parents. Farewell, Gabriel. Send my husband and my daughter to me, and let my last moments with them be undisturbed." She gazed at him kindly and pityingly. "Kiss me, Gabriel."

He left the room with eyes overflowing, and delivered the message to Doctor Louis and Lauretta, who went immediately to the chamber of death.

Father Daniel was in the apartment, praying on his knees. He raised his head as Gabriel Carew stepped to his side. The time was too solemn for resentment or coldness.

"Pray with me," said the priest.

Gabriel Carew sank upon his knees, and prayed, by the priest's direction, for mercy, for light, for pardon to sinners.

Half an hour afterwards the door was opened, and Doctor Louis beckoned to his son-in-law and the priest. They followed him to the bedside of the Angel Mother. All was over; her soul had passed away tranquilly and peacefully. Carew knelt by Lauretta, and passed his arm tenderly around her.

When the news was made known, the village was plunged in grief. The shops were closed, and the villagers went about quietly and softly, and spoke in gentle tones of the Angel Mother, whose spirit was looking down upon them from heavenly heights. Early on the morning of the funeral the children went into the woods and gathered quantities of simple wild flowers, with which they strewed the road from Doctor Louis's house to the grave. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, soft breezes floated over the churchyard.

"It is as the dear mother would have wished," said Doctor Louis to Lauretta. "I remember her saying long ago in the past that she would like to be buried on a bright summer day--such as this. Ah, how the years have flown! But we must not repine. Let us rather be grateful for the happiness we have enjoyed in the association of a saintly woman, an angel now--waiting for us when our time comes."

And in his heart there breathed the hope, "May it come soon, to me!"

The people lingered about the grave over which to this day the flowers are growing.

 XI.

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