Her teacher looked sad as she answered, "Yes, Ellen; I went to see Mary yesterday, and I am grieved to say I found her very, very ill."
"Oh, I am so sorry to hear that," said Ellen. "I do hope she will soon be better, for I am very fond of Mary. I felt so vexed with aunt for turning her away as she did. I suppose she told you all about it?"
"Yes, she told me about it," replied Miss Graham, quietly. "It was a trial to her, but it troubles her no longer."
Something in the young lady's manner struck Ellen as strange.
"Mary is very ill, you said, Miss Graham; but you think she will get better, do you not?" she asked, looking anxiously at her teacher as she spoke.
Miss Graham did not immediately reply. She was making an effort to repress the emotion which the question called forth. At length she answered, in a low tone, "She is better, Ellen. She is released from all pain and sorrow, and at rest now."
"Oh, Miss Graham, you do not mean that she is dead!" Ellen exclaimed, in a voice that expressed at once grief and awe.
"We must not grieve for her, Ellen," said her friend. "She was lonely and sad on earth; now she is sheltered in the Father's home above."
Yet Ellen could not but grieve. The news was so unexpected, and to her seemed so sad that she was greatly moved as she listened to the particulars of her friend's illness and death, which Miss Graham proceeded to give her.
"Directly I saw her, I felt sure that Mary was most seriously ill," she said. "And my father, who visited her with me later in the day, confirmed my worst fears, and could hold out no hope of her recovery. Yet I little thought when I left her peacefully sleeping last evening, that I should not see her again in life, for it seemed probable that she might linger a few days. But early in the morning, when Mary awoke, the woman who watched beside her observed a great change in her appearance, and knew that it betokened the approach of death. Death had for Mary no terror; calm and happy in spirit, she passed joyfully from earth to the presence of her Saviour."