And Amy, whose precarious health rendered her now unable to be even moved from room to room, she on whom she had lavished all the comforts which affluence can invent, how could she bear the trials of poverty? How could she suffer the privations to which they would inevitably be reduced; she who could scarcely hear the sound of a heavy footfall without pain, or be moved, without the greatest agony, from the couch on which she constantly lay. Not that she wavered with regard to Clair, but his letter made her uneasy. Poverty, death, and even that place where "all that's wretched paves the way to death," she would have preferred to marriage, if she could but have endured them alone. But who would be her companion? She turned her eyes to the bed where, with cheeks flushed and eyes that scarcely closed, lay the little sufferer, her small, wasted hand tightly compressed as if with pain. At this moment she slightly moved, and Mabel was instantly by her side. Her eyes glistening bright with fever were now opened wide, and gazing anxiously on poor Mabel's tell-tale face.
"Mabel," said she in a low, sweet but peculiar voice, "sit down by me, for I must talk to you to-night, as my pain is all gone."
Mabel seated herself by her, and took the little hand in hers.
"You will not be frightened, Mabel dear," said the child, "if I talk about strange things, and about going away."
"No, sweet one, no," replied her sister, "talk of anything you like; but where are you going?"
"Mabel, dear," she returned softly, "I suffer such pain that I do not think it will be much longer--I must die soon, and then I hope I am going to that beautiful country we have talked of so often in the church-yard. I wish you could come with me, Mabel dear, for I dream so often that papa is waiting for me, and it is all so beautiful."
A quiet pressure of her hand was the only answer.
"But I cannot help thinking of you, love," continued Amy, "and what you will do without me when I am gone; but yet, Mabel dear, think how strange it would be to me to lie here always; and, if I grew big like this, you would only cry over me, as you do when you think I am asleep; so, Mabel dear, let me go to heaven."
The last words were spoken in the coaxing tone with which she used so often to carry her point in some little argument, and, finding no answer, she pat her hand under Mabel's head, which was bent down, and raised it gently, her face was very pale, and tears were streaming from her eyes.