Devotedly as her friends loved her, they could not sorrow, before her they could not weep.

She was spared all bodily suffering save that proceeding from debility, so extreme she could not walk across the room without assistance.

No pain distorted the expression of her features, which, in this hour of approaching death, looked more lovely than they had ever seemed before; her soft blue eye beamed at times with a celestial light, and her fair hair shaded a brow and cheek so transparent, every blue vein could be clearly seen.

One thought alone gave her pain, her Herbert she felt was still unprepared.
He was speaking one day of the future, anticipating the time when the Rectory would receive her as its gentle mistress, and of the many things which occupied his thoughts for the furtherance of her comfort, when Mary laid her hand gently on his arm, and, with a smile of peculiar sweetness, said-- "Do not think any more of such things, my beloved; the mansion which will behold our blessed union is already furnished and prepared; I may seek it first, but it will be but to render it even yet more desirable to you." Herbert looked on her face to read the meaning of her words; he read them, alas! too plainly, but voice utterly failed.
"Look not on me thus," she continued, in that same pleading and soothing tone.

"Our mansion is prepared for us above; below, my Herbert, oh, think not it will ever receive me.