“It is a very sweet promise,” said Evelyn.  “Aunt Elsie, I wish I knew that was a true, a real occurrence—­that story of Dives and Lazarus; for then I should be quite sure that angels do come to carry home Christians when they die, and that they would come for papa; but some people say it is only a parable.”

“But the Bible does not say so,” returned Elsie.  “Jesus narrates it as a real occurrence, and I believe it was.  Nothing has ever happened in any world that he has not seen and known, therefore he was perfectly competent to tell about the life and death of any man, and also of his experiences after death.  So I think, dear child, you may take all the comfort you can find in believing it a narrative of actual occurrence.

“Ah, now I remember something that may perhaps give you comfort as additional proof that angels do carry home the souls of God’s children.  I heard an old minister—­a man whose word I should credit as entirely as the evidence of my own senses—­tell it to my mother.

“He said that when he was a boy, at home on his father’s farm, he and his brother were one evening out in a meadow attending to their horses.  Some short distance from them was the dwelling of an old elder, a remarkably devoted Christian man, who always had family worship morning and evening, and always, on those occasions, sang a hymn to either Mear or Old Hundred.

“On this particular evening the lads, while busy there in the meadow, were surprised by hearing sounds as of a number of voices singing one of the elder’s two tunes—­I have forgotten now which it was—­but the sounds came nearer and nearer, from the direction of the elder’s house—­and, to the great wonder and astonishment of the lads, passed above their heads.

“They heard the voices in the air, but saw nothing of the singers.  Afterward they learned that the good old man had died just at that time."[A]

[Footnote A:  Given the author as a fact, by a Christian lady who had it from the good minister’s own lips.]

“How strange,” said Evelyn, in an awestruck tone.  “O Aunt Elsie, if I could hear their song of joy over papa, I should not grieve quite so much.”  The door opened and Laura looked in.

“Evelyn,” she said, in a piqued tone, “your father wants you.  It actually seems that you, a mere child, are more necessary to him than his own wife.  He would see you alone for a few minutes.”

Silently, for her heart was too full for speech, Evelyn withdrew herself from Elsie’s arms and hastened to obey the summons.

CHAPTER V.

“Gone before
To that unknown and silent shore.”

Charles Lamb.

Mr. Leland, lying pale and languid on his couch, was listening intently for the approaching footsteps of his child.

As she stole softly in, fearful of disturbing him, he lifted his head slightly and greeted her with a tender, pitying smile and a feebly outstretched hand.