did. How white and still his hands look, falling so loosely against the

black robe.”

We crept toward the stricken man, and stood beside him in breathless awe. He did not observe us; his eyes riveted themselves upon the sods; the drooping of his limbs increased. He seemed about to seat himself on the earth.

Cora took his nerveless hand between hers, and raised her great blue eyes, now full of a light more touching than tears, to his face.

“Papa, papa, come home; you told me that she would never wake up again.”

He turned his heavy eyes upon the child with a look of questioning weariness, as if he had not comprehended her, and remained gazing in her face, with a mournful smile parting his lips.

“Come!” said the child, pulling gently at his hand—“come!”

He yielded to her infant force as if he were himself a child to be thus guided, and walked with a feeble step toward the house. But its cheerfulness mocked him. Bees that had been gathering stores from the honeysuckle porch—birds lodged in the great elm, and a thousand summer insects that love the sunshine, all set up a clamor of melody that made him shrink as if some violence had been offered. He said nothing, but I could see the color fade like mist from his lips. We had brought him too suddenly from the shadows of the grave; the soul requires time before it can leave the vale of tears to stand uncovered in the sunshine. We entered a little parlor, very simple in its adornments, but neat and cheerful as a room could be. The casements were draped with foliage, and this gave a soft twilight to the apartment, that soothed us all.

He sat down in a large, easy-chair, draped with white dimity, that gave a strong contrast to his black robe. Cora climbed to his knee, and put up her quivering lips for a kiss; but he did not heed the action, and I saw her pretty eyes fill with tears—she, poor thing, who had shed so many that day.

I could not bear that look of sorrow, and pressed close up to his other knee.

“Sir, papa,” for she had called him this; and why should not any other child? “Papa, Cora wants to kiss you; she has been trying and trying, but you don’t mind in the least.”

He looked at me with a bewildered stare, glancing down from my face to the brilliant garments that contrasted like flame against his black robe.

“It is Cora, poor little Cora, you should speak to—not me,” I said. “Look, her eyes are full again, and she has cried herself almost to death before.”

He looked at the child. The hard gloom melted from his eyes, and drawing her to his bosom he dissolved into tears.

I took his hand and kissed it. I pressed my lips down on the child’s feet, and smoothed her mourning frock with my hands. Tears were flashing like hail-stones down my own cheeks, and yet there was joy in my heart. Though a child, I knew that the worst part of his grief had passed away. Poor little Cora, how she clung and wept, and nestled in his bosom! His strange coldness had seemed like a second death to the child. I felt that both were happier, and looked on with a glow of the heart.

“My child—my poor, poor orphan,” he murmured, kissing her forehead, while one little pale cheek was pressed to his bosom—“my orphan, my orphan”——

“What is an orphan, papa?” questioned the child, lifting up her face, and gazing at him through her tears. “What is an orphan?”

“It is a child who has no mother, Cora,” was the low and mournful reply.

My heart listened, and I felt to its innermost fold that there was a mysterious sisterhood between the child and myself.

Cora had withdrawn from her father’s bosom, and sat upright on his knee listening to him. There was a moment’s silence, and then, for the first time, he seemed perfectly conscious of my presence.

“And who is this?” he inquired, laying his hand on my head with mournful kindness.

“I am an orphan like her,” was my answer.

“Poor child!” he murmured, gently smoothing my hair again. “But how came you here? You have been crying too—what has grieved you?”

“They were crying, all except you,” I answered. “I was looking for her, down at the brook spring; something told me to walk on—on—on till I came here. I saw Cora and that beautiful lady on the satin pillow, with all the black velvet lying so heavily over her. Cora was very unhappy; so was I; that is all.”

“But who are you? What is your name?” he asked, looking tenderly in my face.

“Zana is my name?”

“Zana, what more? You have another name!”

“No—Zana, that is all.”

“But who is your father?”

The question puzzled me; I did not know its meaning; no one had ever asked after my father before.

“My father!” I said, doubtfully.

“Yes, your father; is he living?”

“I don’t know!”

“But his name, what was that?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then you are indeed an orphan, poor thing.”

“I have no mother; isn’t that an orphan?”

“Truly it is, poor infant—but where do you live?”

“On the Rock, by the little spring pond; don’t you remember, papa?” said Cora, beginning to brighten up.

“Yes, I remember,” he replied, sinking back into the sorrowful gloom, from which my strange appearance had aroused him; “and this was the child then who made your pretty violet wreath?”

“Mamma smiled, don’t you remember, when she saw me with it on, and said it was so lovely!” answered the child, with animation.

“She never looked on you, my poor darling, without a smile,” answered the father, so sadly that my heart swelled once more.

He seemed to forget me again, and sat gazing wistfully on the floor. Cora, too, was exhausted by excess of weeping, and I saw that her beautiful eyelids were drooping like the overripe leaves of a white rose. With a feeling that it was kind and right, I stole from the room and made my way home. It was a long walk, and I reached the cottage in a terrible state of exhaustion. My kind-hearted bonne took me in her arms without annoying questions, and I sighed myself to sleep on her bosom.