June.—"And is it this feeling that makes you gaze so boldly into the jaws that are so shortly to breathe forth death to us?"
Schillie.—"It may be so, or it may be the strength given from on high for such emergencies as these. In this awful hour I feel no fear; a sacred calm is filling my heart. My God, I feel Thou art near; Thou knowest this is not presumption that I bow me in humility before Thy throne, that I approach it under the shadow of my Saviour's wing."
I gazed in her face, flushed with ardour, refulgent with her inspired feelings, and thought her half way to heaven already.
June.—"My Schillie, ere you go, take my thanks take my heartfelt gratitude with you for all you have been to me."
Schillie.—"We go together, June, we shall not be separated in the happy pasture fields of our immortal shepherd. You will come with me to gaze on my children, and whisper holy dreams of goodness and truth into their childish ears to prepare them for the burdens of life, such as we have gone through. Our fates in life were thrown together, and the last act of mercy received from our gracious Father is this, that we die together."
June.—"But with my mortal lips and mortal heart receive my thanks, for, without you, what should I have done? Without your brave heart and good spirit to help me I must have given way. Without your hopeful, strong, and Godly mind I, guilty of ungrateful murmurs, should have forfeited the right of comfort from on high. Ah! my Schillie, take my thanks, for next to my Father, Saviour, God in heaven, what do I not owe to you?"
Schillie.—"Enough, enough, we give and take in this world. Our obligations to each other are mutual. We have an eternity before us to settle the debt between us. Our time on earth draws to a close. It is fit we prepare the young and weak for the fate they seem hardly to realize."
June.—"I shrink from them. Oh, my Schillie, do me a last act of kindness, and keep them from my sight."
Schillie.—"Nay, rouse yourself, and remember you take all you love with you."
June.—"But such a death! and they so young, so beloved, so lovely and gifted, to die in so horrible a manner."