"I am afraid you cannot bear it."
"Yes, I can. Sit here, and let your head rest where it used to;" and Alice laid her cheek upon Ellen's forehead; "you are a great comfort to me, dear Ellie."
"Oh, Alice, don't say so you'll kill me!" exclaimed Ellen, in great distress.
"Why should I not say so, love?" said Alice, soothingly. "I like to say it, and you will be glad to know it by-and-by. You are a great comfort to me."
"And what have you been to me?" said Ellen, weeping bitterly.
"What I cannot be much longer; and I want to accustom you to think of it, and to think of it rightly. I want you to know that, if I am sorry at all in the thought, it is for the sake of others, not myself. Ellie, you yourself will be glad for me in a little while; you will not wish me back."
Ellen shook her head.
"I know you will not, after a while; and I shall leave you in good hands I have arranged for that, my dear little sister!"
The sorrowing child neither knew nor cared what she meant, but a mute caress answered the spirit of Alice's words.
"Look up, Ellie look out again. Lovely, lovely! all that is; but I know heaven is a great deal more lovely. Feasted as our eyes are with beauty, I believe that eye has not seen nor heart imagined the things that God has prepared for them that love him. You believe that, Ellie; you must not be so very sorry that I have gone to see it a little before you."