"Nonsense! Go to sleep. I'm going to put down the light," said Aunt Margret, and she lowered the lamp and put it to stand on a table behind the bed-curtains.

"How good you are to me! Everybody is good to me," came in a fainter voice from the shadow of the bed.

"That is because everybody loves you, Thora," said Anna in a husky murmur. "You must always believe that, whatever happens."

"How sweet it is to be loved! If I could only think that it would last----"

The baby became fretful, and Thora began to sing it to sleep.

"Sleep, baby, sleep,

Angels bright thy slumbers keep,

Sleep, baby, sleep."

Her drowsy voice ran a line and stopped; then ran another line and stopped again, and then the faint voice said:

"How sweet it would be to fall asleep like this some day--baby and I--and awake in heaven!"

"Hush!"

"I should be sorry for Oscar, but still----"