No one could help being thankful that the sufferings of the patient little invalid were over.  Indeed, with the exception of Mrs. Brooke, Lucy, and Stella, no one showed any profound grief for the death of a child who had always been very much secluded, and but little appreciated.  But Mrs. Brooke’s sorrow was mingled with some self-reproach that she had not been to her departed child all that a mother should have been, and she suffered now for the wilfulness which, when deprived of one blessing, had turned petulantly from another.  Lucy constantly missed her little favourite, and her sorrow for the loss of her father, never quite removed, seemed revived anew by her cousin’s death.  But she could feel that Amy was infinitely happier in her heavenly home than she could ever have been on earth; and she felt not only that she should join her there, but also that there might be an intercourse and communion of spirit in Christ, incomprehensible to those who look only to things “seen and temporal.”

It was Lucy’s greatest solace to visit poor Antonio, and speak to him of Amy’s concern for him, and her desire that he should find rest and peace in the love of that Saviour in whom she had so fully trusted.  He was deeply touched on hearing some of the things she had said, and the tears came to his eyes when he spoke of her kindness in sending so many things for his comfort.

“But,” he said with deep feeling, “it was very different for a blessed, innocent child like her, and a sinful man like me.”  Lucy explained that all are under the condemnation of sin, since none are without it; and that no sins are too great to be taken away by the Lamb of God once offered as a sacrifice for “the sin of the world.”  He listened silently, while an expression of hope stole over his haggard countenance; and Nelly told Miss Lucy, with much pleasure, that after that he prayed much less to the Virgin, and his prayers were more generally spontaneous ejaculations, expressing the deeply-felt need of a Redeemer.

Stella’s grief for her little sister, partly owing, perhaps, to her physical weakness, had seemed more violent than that of any one else.  The paroxysms of hysterical crying which frequently came on, and an aversion to take necessary nourishment, very much retarded her recovery, and prevented her regaining strength.  As the acuteness of her sorrow gradually wore itself out, the unaccustomed feelings of weakness and depression brought on fits of fretfulness, in which all Lucy’s forbearance was called for; but she remembered how good-naturedly her cousin had borne with her own fit of nervous irritability, and she generally managed to soothe and pacify her, even when she was most unreasonable, and tired out the patience of both Sophy and Ada.

After the first few weeks had passed, the shadowy hush and solemnity brought by death gradually passed away, and except for the deep black crape of the dresses, and the abstinence from all gaieties, the family life seemed to have returned to its former tone.  So far as external signs went, there was no more realizing sense of that invisible world to which one of their number had gone—­no more “looking unto” Him who had been her support in the dark valley—­than there had been before.  And when a bereavement does not draw the heart nearer to God, there is every reason to fear that it drives it farther from Him.