It was toward the close of one of those calm days in September, when nature seems pausing to note the first few traces of decay which autumn has thrown upon garden, field, and forest, that Mrs. Beaufort, and the husband of her daughter, with a few friends, were gathered in the chamber of their beloved one, to see her die.  How sad, how very sad is the death-bed of the young, sinking beneath premature decay!  In the passing away of one who has met the storms of life, and battled with them through vigorous maturity, and sinks at last in the course of nature, there is little to pain the feelings.  But when the young and beautiful die, with all their tenderest and earliest ties clinging to them—­an event so unlooked for, so out of the true order of nature—­we can only turn away and weep.  We can extract from such an affliction but few thoughts of comfort.  All is dreary, and blank, and desolate.

“Bring me my children,” the dying mother said, rousing up from a state of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought both her mother and her husband to her bedside.

“What did you want, dear Amanda?” asked the husband, laying his hand gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of coming dissolution.

“My dear babes,” she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an effort.  “My Anna and Mary.  Who will be a mother to them, when I am laid at rest?  Oh, that I could take them with me!”

Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud.  The infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when she had a little recovered herself.

“Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!” she said, with tender animation.  “My sweet, sweet baby!  I cannot give you up!” And she clasped it to her breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled over her pale cheek.  “And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?” she asked.

Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was brought in and lifted upon the bed.

“Don’t cry, ma,” said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her mother’s cheeks, “don’t cry; I’ll always be good.”

“Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!” the mother sobbed, eagerly kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers; and then clasped the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.

The children were, after a time, removed, but the thoughts of the dying mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.

“I now see and feel,” said she, looking up into the face of her mother, after having lain with closed eyes for about ten minutes, “that all my sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be upon me, would have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to be guided by you.  I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way.  How could it have been otherwise, and I so strangely