"No, of course not, my pet; but God will take care of that; He will not let you miss me too much."
"Never to be tired again, how strange that will be!" continued the dying child.
Queenie softly repeated the words, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
"Ah, that sounds nice. You always say such comforting things. I know I have tired you dreadfully, Queen, and made you very unhappy, but you will soon be better, will you not?"
"I will try," in a faint voice, striving to repress her agitation, for a strange, indefinable expression seemed stealing over the child's face.
"When you are sad you must say to yourself, 'Emmie likes me to be happy,' and then you will feel better, you know; but I can't talk any more, the sea sounds so close. Kiss me and say good night, Queen."
A little while afterwards, when Garth stole softly to the door of the sick room, the sisters were still clinging together; but going still closer, he saw that Queenie was unconsciously rocking a dead face upon her bosom.
He had taken the child from her arms, and then led her gently from the room, and she had not resisted him; she only laid her face down on the arm of the chair where he had placed her, and wept as though the very flood-gates of her being were unloosed.
"Yes, cry, dear, it will do you good," was all he said to her, but for a long time he stood beside her; just smoothing her soft hair with his hand, but tenderly, as though she were a child, until the first bitterness of her anguish was past, and then she said quietly that she must go back to Emmie.
"But not to-night, dear, surely not to-night!" looking down with infinite pity at her poor drowned face and half-extinguished eyes.