“They do take away the fear of death,” returned Marion; “because they remove the uncertainty which has heretofore gathered like a gloomy pall over the last hours of mortality.  When the soul of lover or friend passed from this world, it seemed to plunge into a dark profound, and there came not back an echo to tell of his fate.  ’The bourne from which no traveller returns!’ Oh! the painful eloquence of that single line.  But, now, we who receive the doctrine of which I speak, can look beyond this bourne; and though the traveller returns not, yet we know something of how he fared on his entrance into the new country.”

“Then we need not fear for you,” said Anna, tenderly, “when you are called to pass this bourne?”

“No, sister,” replied Marion, “I know in whom I have believed, and I feel sure that it will be well with me, so far as I have shunned what is evil and sought to do good.  Do not think of me as sinking into some gloomy profound; or awakening from my sleep of death, startled, amazed, or shocked by the sudden transition.  Loving angels will be my companions as I descend into the valley and the shadow of death; and I will fear no evil.  Upon the other side I will be received among those who have gone before, and I will scarcely feel that there has been a change.  A little while I will remain there, and then pass upward to my place in heaven.”

The mother of Marion entered her room at this moment, and the conversation was suspended.  But it was renewed again soon after, and the gentle-hearted, spiritual-minded girl continued to talk of the other world as one preparing for a journey talks about the new country into which he is about going, and of whose geography, and the manners and customs of whose people, he has made himself conversant from books.

Not long did she remain on this side of the dark valley, through which she was to pass.  A few months wound up the story of her earthly life, and she went peacefully and confidently on her way to her eternal dwelling-place.  It was a sweet, sad time, when the parting hour came, and the mother, brother, and dearly loved adopted sister, gathered around Marion’s bed to see her die.  That angels were present, each one felt; for the sphere of tranquillity that pervaded the hearts of all was the sphere of heaven.

“God is love,” said Marion, a short time before she passed away.  She was holding the hand of her mother, and looking tenderly in her face.  “How exquisite is my perception of this truth?  It comes upon me with a power that subdues my spirit, yet fills it with ineffable peace.  With what a wondrous love has he regarded us!  I never had had so intense a perception of this as now.”

Marion closed her eyes, and for some time lay silent, while a heavenly smile irradiated her features.  Then looking up, she said, and as she spoke she took the hand of Anna and placed it within that of her mother—­

“When I am gone, let the earthly love you bore me, mother, be added to that already felt for our dear Anna.  Think of me as an angel, and of her as your child.”