“Did she ever marry?” asked Carrie, feeling that no life could be quite successful without that great event.

“Never.  She felt herself a widow, and wore black to the day of her death.  Many men asked her hand, but she refused them all, and was the sweetest ‘old maid’ ever seen,—­cheerful and serene to the very last, for she was ill a long time, and found her solace and stay still in the beloved books.  Even when she could no longer read them, her memory supplied her with the mental food that kept her soul strong while her body failed.  It was wonderful to see and hear her repeating fine lines, heroic sayings, and comforting psalms through the weary nights when no sleep would come, making friends and helpers of the poets, philosophers, and saints whom she knew and loved so well.  It made death beautiful, and taught me how victorious an immortal soul can be over the ills that vex our mortal flesh.

“She died at dawn on Easter Sunday, after a quiet night, when she had given me her little legacy of letters, books, and the one jewel she had always worn, repeating her lover’s words to comfort me.  I had read the Commendatory Prayer, and as I finished she whispered, with a look of perfect peace, ’Shut the book, dear, I need study no more; I have hoped and believed, now I shall know;’ and so went happily away to meet her lover after patient waiting.”

The sigh of the wind was the only sound that broke the silence till the quiet voice went on again, as if it loved to tell the story, for the thought of soon seeing the beloved sister took the sadness from the memory of the past.

“I also found my solace in books, for I was very lonely when she was gone, my father being dead, the brothers married, and home desolate.  I took to study and reading as a congenial employment, feeling no inclination to marry, and for many years was quite contented among my books.  But in trying to follow in dear Lucretia’s footsteps, I unconsciously fitted myself for the great honor and happiness of my life, and curiously enough I owed it to a book.”

Mrs. Warburton smiled as she took up a shabby little volume from the table where Alice had laid it, and, quick to divine another romance, Eva said, like a story-loving child, “Do tell about it!  The other was so sad.”

“This begins merrily, and has a wedding in it, as young girls think all tales should.  Well, when I was about thirty-five, I was invited to join a party of friends on a trip to Canada, that being the favorite jaunt in my young days.  I’d been studying hard for some years, and needed rest, so I was glad to go.  As a good book for an excursion, I took this Wordsworth in my bag.  It is full of fine passages, you know, and I loved it, for it was one of the books given to Lucretia by her lover.  We had a charming time, and were on our way to Quebec when my little adventure happened.  I was in raptures over the grand St. Lawrence as we steamed slowly from