CHAPTER XI.
LIZZIE.
Gathered 'round a narrow coffin, Stand a mourning, funeral train, While for her, redeemed thus early, Tears are falling now like rain.
Hopes are crushed and hearts are bleeding; Drear the fireside now, and alone; She, the best loved and the dearest, Far away to heaven hath flown.
Long, long, will they miss thee, Lizzie, Long, long days for thee they'll weep; And through many nights of sorrow Memory will her vigils keep.
In the chapter just finished we casually mentioned that Lizzie, instead of growing stronger, had drooped day by day, until to all save the fond hearts which watched her, she seemed surely passing away.

But they to whom her presence was as sunlight to the flowers, shut their eyes to the dreadful truth, refusing to believe that she was leaving them.

Oftentimes during the long winter nights would Mr.Dayton steal softly to her chamber, and kneeling by her bedside gaze in mute anguish upon the wasted face of his darling.

And when from her transparent brow and marble cheek he wiped the deadly night sweats, a chill, colder far than the chill of death, crept over his heart, and burying his face in his hands he would cry, "Oh, Father, let this cup pass from me!" As spring approached she seemed better, and the father's heart grew stronger, and Lucy's step was lighter, and grandma's words more cheerful, as hope whispered, "she will live." But when the snow was melted from off the hillside, and over the earth the warm spring sun was shining, when the buds began to swell and the trees to put forth their young leaves, there came over her a change so fearful that with one bitter cry of sorrow hope fled forever; and again, in the lonely night season, the weeping father knelt and asked for strength to bear it when his best-loved child was gone.
"Poor Harry!" said Lizzie one day to Anna, who was sitting by her, "Poor Harry, if I could see him again; but I never shall." "Perhaps you will," answered Anna.

"I wrote, to him three weeks ago, telling him to come quickly." "Then he will," said Lizzie, "but if I should be dead when he comes, tell him how I loved him to the last, and that the thought of leaving him was the sharpest pang I suffered." There were tears in Anna's eyes as she kissed the cheek of the sick girl, and promised to do her bidding.