“Call her dawn! for is she not a coming light to you?  See, the day is breaking, Hugh,”—­then the lips closed forever.

“Come back, come back to me, my loved, my darling one,” broke from the anguished heart of the stricken husband, and falling on his knees beside the now lifeless form, he buried his face in his hands, and wept.

But even grief cannot always have its sway.

A low, wailing cry from the infant moved his heart with a strange thrill, he knew not whether of joy or pain, and rising from the posture in which grief had thrown him, he went and bowed himself over the silent form.

One gone, another come.

But the little being had her life in its veins, and slowly he felt himself drawn earthward by this new claim upon his love and sympathy.

A strange feeling came over him as the nurse took the little child, and laid upon the bed the robes its mother had prepared for it.

It was too much, and the heart-stricken man left the room, and locking himself in his library, where he had spent so many happy hours with his lost one, gave full vent to the deep anguish of his soul.  He heard the kind physician’s steps as he left, and no more.  For hours he sat bowed in grief, and silent, while sorrow’s bitter waters surged over him.

No more would her sweet smile light his home; no more her voice call his name in those tender tones, that had so often been music to his ears; no more could they walk or sit in the moonlight and converse.  Was it really true?  Had Alice gone, or was it not all a troubled dream?

Noon came, and his brow became more fevered.  But there was no soft hand to soothe the pain away.  Night came, and still he sat and mourned; and then the sound of voices reached his ears.  He roused himself to meet the friends and relations of his dear departed one, and then all seemed vague, indefinite and dreamlike.

The funeral rites, the burial, the falling earth upon the coffin lid; these all passed before him, then like one in a stupor he went back to his home, and took up the broken threads of life again, and learned to live and smile for his bright-eyed, beautiful Dawn.  May she be Dawn to the world, he said unto himself, as he looked into her heaven-blue eyes; then thanked God that his life was spared to guide her over life’s rough seas, and each day brought fresh inspirations of hope, new aspirations of strength, and more confiding trust in Him whose ways are not as our ways.

CHAPTER II.

Dawn grew to be very beautiful.  Every day revealed some new charm, until Hugh feared she too might go and live with the angels.  But there was a mission for her to perform on the earth, and she lived.

Each day he talked to her of her mother, and kept her memory alive to her beautiful traits, until the child grew so familiar with her being as to know no loss of her bodily presence, save in temporal affairs.