“Your day will soon close, Anna,” said Mrs. Bell, in a cheerful tone.

“Or, as we say,” quickly replied Anna, smiling, “my morning will soon break.  It is only a kind of twilight here.  I am waiting for the day-dawn.”

“My dear young lady,” said Mrs. Ellis, with much earnestness, bending over the dying girl as she spoke—­the newness and strangeness of the scene had so wrought upon her feelings, that she could not repress their utterance—­“Is all indeed as you say?  Are you inwardly so calm, so hopeful, so confident of the morning?  Forgive me such a question, at such a moment.  But the thought of death has ever been terrible to me; and now, to see a fellow-mortal standing, as you are, so near the grave, and yet speaking in cheerful tones of the last agony, fills me with wonder.  Is it all real?  Are you so full of heavenly tranquillity?”

Was the light dimmed in Anna’s eyes by such pressing questions?  Did they turn her thoughts too realizingly upon the “last agony?” Oh no!  Even in the waning hours of life, her quickest impulse was to render service to another.  Earnest, therefore, was her desire to remove from the lady’s mind this fear of death, even though she felt the waters of Jordan already touching her own descending feet.

“God is love,” she said, and with an emphasis that gave to the mind of Mrs. Ellis a new appreciation of the words.  “In his love he made us, that he might bless us with infinite and eternal blessings, and these await us in heaven.  And now that he sends an angel to take me by the hand and lead me up to my heavenly home, shall I tremble and fear to accompany the celestial messenger?  Does the child, long separated from a loving parent, shrink at the thought of going home, or ask the hours to linger?  Oh no!”

“But all is so uncertain,” said Mrs. Ellis, eager to penetrate further into the mystery.

“Uncertain!” There was something of surprise in the voice of Anna May.  “God is truth as well as love; and both in his love and truth he is unchangeable.  When, as Divine Truth, he came to our earth, and spake as never man spake, he said, ’In my Father’s house are many mansions.  I go to prepare a place for you.’  The heavens and the earth may pass away, Mrs. Ellis, but not a jot or tittle of the divine word can fail.”

“Ah! but the preparation for those heavenly mansions!” said Mrs. Ellis.  “The preparation, Anna!  Who may be certain of this?”

The eyes of the sick girl closed, the long lashes resting like a dark fringe on her snowy cheek.  For more than a moment she lay silent and motionless; then looking up, she answered—­

“God is love.  If we would be with him, we must be like him.”

“How are we to be like him, Anna?” asked Mrs. Ellis.

“He is love; but not a love of himself.  He loves and seeks to bless others.  We must do the same.”

“And have you, Anna”—­

But the words died on the lips of the speaker.  Again had the drooping lashes fallen, and the pale lids closed over the beautiful eyes.  And now a sudden light shone through the transparent tissue of that wan face—­a light, the rays of which none who saw them needed to be told were but gleams of the heavenly morning just breaking for the mortal sleeper.