Oakvale looked scarcely less beautiful now that the surrounding hills wore their white mantle of snow, contrasting with the intense blue of the winter sky and the dark green of the pines, while the little river lay, a strip of glittering ice, under the trees, leafless now, which overshadowed its ceaseless ripple in the warm summer days.  The young party had pleasant sleigh-rides to see old favourite spots in their winter aspect, and Fred joined the younger children in their skating and snowballing, though he enjoyed much more the walks in which he accompanied his sister and her friend.  Mary and he got on as well as Lucy had expected, although she was disappointed that, after their visit was over, she could not draw from him any enthusiastic praise of Miss Eastwood; at which she would have been a little vexed, but for the reflection that Fred, unlike most people, never said the half of what he thought.  He did not, however, leave Oakvale without a promise to renew his visit during the summer vacation.

Lucy, on her return home, found her little cousin evidently sinking fast.  Her strength was almost exhausted, and she suffered a good deal from pain and restlessness; but scarcely a complaint ever escaped her lips.  She often talked now about going to Jesus, the thought on which her mind seemed most to dwell.  Mrs. Brooke, seeing this, at last sent for the minister whose church the family usually attended on Sundays, that being the extent of their connection with it.  But he was a stranger to Amy,—­for his ministerial visits had never been desired or encouraged,—­and though she was grateful to him for coming to see her and praying beside her bed, she could not speak to him, as she could to Lucy, about her willingness to go to the happy home which her Saviour was preparing for her.  Still her visitor could see enough of the change God had wrought in her heart, to make him marvel, as he took his leave, at the wonderful way in which God sometimes raises up to Himself a witness in the most worldly homes, and perfects praise “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.”

The little invalid was sometimes slightly delirious when the hectic fever was at its height, but her wandering fancies were always of gentle and pleasant things.  She would ask if they did not hear the sweet singing in her room; and when Lucy would ask what was sung, would say, “Jerusalem,” meaning “Jerusalem the Golden,” her favourite hymn next to the one she loved best of all, “I lay my sins on Jesus.”

One night, when she had been asleep for some time, with Lucy only watching beside her, she suddenly awoke, a flash of joy lighting up her face.  “Lucy,” she murmured faintly; but when Lucy bent over her, she could catch but one word—­“Jesus.”  Lucy saw a change come over her countenance, which she had seen once before, and ere the others, hastily summoned, could be with her, the little form lay lifeless, its immortal tenant having escaped to the heavenly home, whither she had been longing to go.