"Agnes, is there any matter relating to your worldly affairs that you have not already thought of, or that you wish attended to."
"No, Sister, I believe not. Ah, yes, there is," she quickly added; "I would ask, that when I am gone, you will put my poor body in a grave immediately beside that of Mr. Harkness. He was my intended husband, and died only a short time ago with the fever. Also, will you add a postscript to mother's letter, and say to her that it was my dying wish, that if she lives, she will at some future time have us both taken up and brought home, and bury us in one grave there?"
"Indeed, I will do so. Is there nothing else, Agnes?"
There was a great sadness in her voice as Sister Mary asked this, just as though, years agone, when her own face was young and pretty, and her own heart happy and free, she had been loved and had lost her love in the grave.
"No, Sister, nothing more of this world. Come, Death, O come," said Agnes, as she was seized with a paroxysm of pain.
"In God's good time, Agnes, dear," suggested the Sister.
"Yes, yes, in His good time, Agnes!" repeated the dying girl, as though chiding herself for her impatience to be gone; "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
"Pray, sweet Agnes, pray to Him for strength to keep you, all unfearful, while passing through the Dark Valley."
"Give me, O, my Heavenly Father, give me strength in this mine hour of tribulation and suffering? Not my will, but Thine be done!"
Surely "Angels ever bright and fair" bore away these half-whispered words to Heaven like sweet incense.