Why didn't she come home with you ?" Florence could not reply, and the tears rolled silently over her cheeks.
"Isaac," said Mr.Stewart, in a low, saddened tone, "Mary has gone to a brighter home in heaven! She is happier far than she could be even here with us! She died about a month ago." There was a pause, and then, wiping his rough sleeve across his eyes, Isaac slowly said--"And Miss Mary is dead! Well, she has gone to heaven, if ever anybody did! for she was never like common children.
Many's the time when my poor little Hannah was burnt, and like to die, that child has come by herself of dark nights to bring her a cake, or something sweet and good! God bless her little soul! she always was an angel!" and again wiping his eyes he mounted the box and drove homeward.
Ah! gentle Mary! no sculptured monument marks thy resting-place! No eulogistic sermon, no high-flown panegyric was ever delivered, on thy life and death! Yet that silent tear of old Isaac's outspoke a thousand eulogies! It told of all thy kindness, charity, love, angelic purity of heart, and called thee "Guardian Angel" of the house of Hamilton.
Night found Florence sitting alone in the parlor of her old and dearly loved home.

The apartment was much as she had left it five years before, and old familiar articles of furniture greeted her on every side.

She sat down to the piano, on which in girlhood she had practised, and gently touched the keys.

The soft tones, waking the "slumbering chord of memory," brought most vividly back the scenes of other days.

Again she stood there an only cherished daughter, and her father's image, as he used to stand leaning against the mantel-piece, rose with startling distinctness before her.