Calm and tearless, but pale with a grief too intense for tears, he came over. A flush of love and joy lit up the wan face at his approach, her arms—with a last effort—encircled his neck; the golden head dropped on his breast, while the sweet beautiful lips murmured:
"Dear Willard! dearest Willard! good-by! I am going; going to heaven to pray for you and Sibyl. You will try to be very happy, and make her very happy, when I am gone—will you not? Lift me up, Willard, and carry me to the window, I want to see the beautiful sunlight once more."
He lifted the slight little form, and sat down, with her in his arms, beside the window. A bright ray of sunshine flashed in, and lit up with a sort of glory the angel-brow, the golden hair, and the sweet, pale face.
Colder and colder grew the hand in his; lower sank the head on his bosom; fainter and fainter beat the gentle, loving heart. No sound, save the suppressed sobs of Mrs. Tom, broke the stillness of the room.
Suddenly the closed eyes flew open, with a vivid, radiant light; the sweet lips Darted in a smile of ineffable joy; and she half rose from her recumbent posture. The next, she fell back; the blue eyes closed; a slight shiver passed through her frame; and the streaming sunshine fell on the face of the dead.
* * * * *
One year after, there was a wedding—a very quiet, private one—at the little church of N——. And when it was over, Sibyl and Willard entered their plain, dark traveling carriage, and bidding good-by to their friends assembled in the parsonage, set out for Willard's Virginia home—where, in the unclouded sunshine of the future, they soon forgot, or learned to only look back with tender regret, to the sufferings and sorrows of the past.
Christie was not forgotten. The oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Drummond, a gentle, dark-eyed girl, bears her name.
* * * * *
Three months after the marriage of Sibyl, her brother led to the altar Laura Courtney, whose natural vivacity soon overcame the shock she had received by the sudden death of Edgar Courtney, her unloved husband; and three days later, in the good bark "Evening Star," she was dancing over the bright waves of the Atlantic, on her way to Europe with Captain Campbell.