“Yes, it only buzzed like a honey-bee, right in here,” and Nina touched the top of her head, while Edith continued.

“Did Arthur ever tell you who it was that fell into the Rhine?”

“Yes, Mrs. Atherton wrote, and I cried so hard, but he did not say your name was Eloise, or I should have guessed you were Miggie, crazy as I am.”

“Possibly Grace did not so write to him,” returned Edith; “but let me tell you of Edith Hastings as she used to be when a child;” and with the blue eyes of Nina fixed upon her, Edith narrated that portion of her history already known to the reader, dwelling long upon Richard’s goodness, and thus seeking to prepare her sister for the last, the most important part of all.

“After Arthur deceived me so,” she said,” I thought my heart would never cease to ache, and it never has.”

“But it will—­it will,” cried Nina, raising herself in bed.  “When I’m gone, it will all come right.  I pray so every day, though it’s hard to do it sometimes now I know you are my sister.  It would be so nice to live with you and Arthur, and I love you so much.  You can’t begin to know,” and the impulsive girl fell forward on Edith’s bosom sobbing impetuously, “I love you so much, so much, that it makes it harder to die; but I must, and when the little snow-birds come back to the rose bushes beneath the windows of Grassy Spring a great ways off, the hands that used to feed them with crumbs will be laid away where they’ll never tear Arthur boy’s hair any more.  Oh, I wish they never had—­I wish they never had,” and sob after sob shook Nina’s delicate frame as she gave vent to her sorrow for the trial she had been to Arthur.  Edith attempted to comfort her by saying, “He has surely forgiven you, darling; and Nina, please don’t talk so much of dying, Arthur and I both hope you will live yet many years.”

“Yes, Arthur does,” Nina rejoined quickly, “him praying so one night when he thought I was asleep—­I make believe half of the time, so as to hear what he says when he kneels down over in that corner; and once, Miggie, a great while ago, it was nothing but one dreadful groan, except when he said, ’God help me in this my darkest hour, and give me strength to drink this cup.’  But there wasn’t any cup there for I peaked, thinking maybe he’d go some of my nasty medicine, and it wasn’t dark, either for there were two candles on the mantel and they shone on Arthur’s face, which looked to me as if it were a thousand years old.  Then he whispered, ‘Edith, Edith,’ and the sound was so like a wail that I felt my blood growing cold.  Didn’t you hear him, Miggie, way off to the north; didn’t you hear him call?  God did, and helped him, I reckon, for he got up and came and bent over me, kissing me so much, and whispering, ‘My wife, my Nina.’  It was sweet to be so kissed, and I fell away to sleep; but Arthur must have knelt beside me the livelong night, for every time I moved I felt his hand clasp mine.  The next day he told me that Richard saved you from the river, and his lips quivered as if he feared you were really lost.”