Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment.  Her voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, amazed us.  She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her Heavenly Father.

The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat.  She looked up with a strange smile, and said,—­

“My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful home.  It is almost ready, David said.  But he brought the necklace, and clasped it about my throat.  It choked me, and I groaned a little.  David went then, and I’ve been waiting ever since for you to come.”

It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this.  I observed that she trembled.  “My dear girl,” said I, “what makes you tremble so?”

“Why,” said she, in a whisper, “there is truly a red circle about her throat.  I saw it.  ’Tis a warning.  She’s going to die.”

“Maybe,” I said, “she is going soon to her beautiful home.  But we know no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure.”  Then, taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily’s room.

Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping.  The old man, with the Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed.  He had been reading and praying.

She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.

“I know,” said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew near the bedside,—­“I know what made me talk so yesterday.”.

She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty.  We all stood breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost.

“I know,” she repeated, “what it was.  ’Twas the earthy principle in me—­which revived—­for a moment—­at the last—­and then put forth all its strength.  Since I have seen David—­it seems pleasant—­to go.  I can’t tell,—­you wouldn’t understand,—­I couldn’t, if the separation—­hadn’t begun.  I’m not wholly here now.”  And the fixed, strange look in her face confirmed the words as they fell from her lips.

She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and fainter, but seemingly in no distress.

Suddenly she started.  Her face grew radiant.  Her gaze seemed fixed on some point, thousands and thousands of miles away.  Clasping her hands together, she cried out, joyfully,—­

“Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!”

’Twas over in an instant.  She closed her eyes, turned her head a little on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a poor tired child sinks away to sleep.

“And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending,” I said, earnestly.  For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might certainly do so.

Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out to the clump of maples on the knoll.  Mary Ellen was already there.