Sobs choked her utterance.

“Poor darling!” said Adelaide, crying bitterly.  “I don’t think an angel could have borne it better, and I know he will reproach himself for his cruelty to you.”

“Oh, Aunt Adelaide, don’t say that; don’t let him reproach himself, but say all you can to comfort him.  I am his child—­he had a right—­and he only wanted to make me good—­and I needed it all, or God would not have permitted it.”

“Oh, Elsie, darling, I cannot give you up! you must not die!” sobbed Adelaide, bending over her, her tears falling fast on Elsie’s bright curls.  “It is too hard to see you die so young, and with so much to live for.”

“It is very sweet to go home so soon,” murmured the soft, low voice of the little one, “so sweet to go and live with Jesus, and be free from sin forever!”

Adelaide made no reply, and for a moment her bitter sobbing was the only sound that broke the stillness of the room.

“Don’t cry so, dear auntie,” Elsie said faintly.  “I am very happy—­only I want to see my father.”  She added something incoherently, and Adelaide perceived, with excessive alarm, that her mind was again beginning to wander.

She hastily summoned a servant and despatched a message to the physician, urging him to come immediately, as there was an alarming change in his patient.

Never in all her life had Adelaide suffered such anxiety and distress as during the next half-hour, which she and the faithful Chloe spent by the bedside, watching the restless tossings of the little sufferer, whose fever and delirium seemed to increase every moment.  Jim had not been able to find the doctor, and Mrs. Travilla was staying away longer than she had intended.

But at length she came, and, though evidently grieved and concerned at the change in Elsie, her quiet, collected manner calmed and soothed Adelaide.

“Oh, Mrs. Travilla,” she whispered, “do you think she will die?”

“We will not give up hope yet, my dear,” replied the old lady, trying to speak cheerfully; “but my greatest comfort, just at present, is the sure knowledge that she is prepared for any event.  No one can doubt that she is a lamb of the Saviour’s fold, and if he is about to gather her into his bosom—­” She paused, overcome by emotion, then added in a tremulous tone, “It will be a sad thing to us, no doubt, but to her—­dear little one—­a blessed, blessed change.”

“I cannot bear the thought,” sobbed Adelaide, “but I have scarcely any hope now, because—­” and then she told Mrs. Travilla what they had been doing in her absence.

“Don’t let that discourage you, my dear,” replied her friend soothingly.  “I have no faith in presentiments, and while there is life there is hope.”

Dr. Barton, the physician, came in at that moment, looked at his young patient, felt her pulse, and shook his head sorrowfully.