Nelly sprang to the bed on which lay her mother.  I heard a sigh-a sob.  It was from the child.  The mother spoke in a tone so joyous that I was at first surprised to hear it from one who, it was supposed, was near her end.  But I soon found it was no matter of surprise.

How clear and fair was that face!  How pleading and eloquent those eyes, as they turned, in all their full-orbed brightness, upon me, as I approached the bedside of the mother of Nelly!  There were needed no words to convey to my mind the thoughts that dwelt within that soul, whose strength seemed to increase as that of the body diminished.

With one of her pale hands she took mine; with the other, that of her daughter.

“Blessings on you both!” she said.  “Nelly, my dear Nelly, my faithful, loving Nelly, I am much better than I was; I shall soon be well, and what a happy time we will have to-night!  I hear that voice again to-night, Nelly.  Don’t you hear it?  It says, ’We shall all be happy soon.’  I see a bright star above your head, my child; and now I see my mother.  She is all bright and radiant, and there is a beauty around her that I cannot describe.  Nelly, I am better.  Why, I feel quite well.”

She sprang forward, and, with her hands yet clasping Nelly’s and my own, she stretched her arms upward.  There was a bright glow of indescribable joy upon her features.  She spoke calmly, sweetly spoke.  “We shall all be happy soon-happy soon-happy-” then fell back on the pillow, and moved no more-spoke not again.

She was indeed happy.  But, Nelly-she was sad.  For a long time she kept her hand in that of her mother.  She at length removed it, and fell upon the floor, beneath the weight of her new sorrow.  Yet it was but for a moment.  Suddenly she sprang up, as if imbued with angelic hope and peace.  We were surprised to see the change, and to behold her face beam with so much joy, and hear her voice lose its sadness.  We looked forth with that inner sight which, on such occasions, seems quickened to our sense, and could see that mother, and that mother’s mother, bending over that child, and raising her up to strength and hope, and a living peace and joy.

Nelly’s little purse lay on the floor, where she had dropped it when she came in.  The old nurse picked it up, and laid it on a stand beside the bed.  A tear stole out from beneath the eyelids of the child as she beheld it, and thought how all day she had worked and walked to get the little sum with which her mother and she were to be made happy on that Independence night.  I called her to me.  We sat down and talked over the past, the present and the future, and I was astonished to hear the language which her pure and gentle, patient soul poured forth.

“Well, sir,” she said, “we are happy to-night, though you think, perhaps, there is greater cause for sorrow.  But mother has gone from all these toiling scenes.  She will work no more all the long day, and the night, to earn a shilling, with which to buy our daily bread.  She has gone where they have food that we know not of; and she’s happy to-night, and, sir, we shall all be happy soon.  We shall all go up there to live amid realities.  These are but shadows here of those great, real things that exist there; and I sometimes think, when sitting amid these shadows, that it will be a happy time when we leave them, and walk amid more substantial things.”