“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”

She believed; and, while a beautiful world linked her to life, and duty called to constant and cheerful labor, death lost its hideous aspect.  With a firm faith in the Gospel of Christ, she felt that earth with all its loveliness was but a probationary dwelling-place; and that death was an angel of God, summoning the laborers to their harvest home.  She had often asked what is the aim and end of life?  One set of philosophers told her it was to be happy.  Another exclaimed it was to learn to endure with fortitude all ills.  But neither satisfied her; one promised too much, the other too little, and only in revelation was an answer found.  Yet how few pause to ponder its significance!  With the majority, life is the all:  the springtime, the holiday; and death the hated close of enjoyment.  They forget that

    “Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
      Is our destined end or way;
     But to act that each to-morrow
      Find us further than to-day.”

The path of Christianity is neither all sunshine nor all shadow, checkered certainly, but leading to a final abode of unimaginable bliss; and, with the Bible to guide her, the orphan walked fearlessly on, discharging her duties, and looking unto God and his Christ to aid her.  She sat on the steps of the sepulcher, watching the last rays of the setting sun gild the monumental shafts that pointed to heaven.  Her grave face might have told the scrutinizing observer of years of grief and struggle; but it also betokened an earnest soul calmly trusting the wisdom and mercy of the All-Father.  She sighed as she thought of the gifted but unhappy woman who slept near her, and, rising, walked on to Lilly’s tomb.  Ten years had rolled their waves over her since that little form was placed here.  She looked down at the simple epitaph:  “He taketh his young lambs home.”  The cherub face seemed to beam upon her once more, and the sweet, birdlike tones of her childish voice still lingered in the secret cells of memory.  She extended her arms, as if to clasp the form borne up by the angels, and said tremulously: 

“Lilly, my sister, my white-robed darling, but a little while and we shall meet where orphanage is unknown!  ‘He doeth all things well!’ Ah, little sleeper, I can wait patiently for our reunion.”

As she turned her steps homeward a shadowy smile stole over her features, and the lines about her mouth resumed their wonted composure.

“Beulah, father has been asking for you,” said Georgia, who met her on the staircase.

“I will go down to him immediately,” was the cheerful answer, and, putting away her bonnet and shawl, she went at once to the library.  The doctor was leaning very far back in his favorite chair, and she saw at a glance he had fallen asleep.