Uncle Thomas sighed as he read this, permitted the letter to droop from before his eyes, and sat for some time gazing upon vacancy. Far back his thoughts had wandered, and before the eyes of his mind was the frail, fading form of a beloved sister, who had, years before, left her place and her mission upon the earth, and passed up higher.
"The doctor says that I must go South with Lizzy," wrote Mrs. Walton early in December, "and spend the winter. We leave for Charleston next Tuesday, and may pass over to Havana."
Uncle Thomas sighed as before, and then became lost in a sad reverie. He had been to Havana with both of his sisters. The warm South had been of use to them. It prolonged, but did not save their lives.
And so the months passed on—the seasons came and went—but health, alas! returned not to the veins of the lovely girl.
It was an autumn day, nearly two years after that fatal cold, taken in consequence of wearing thin shoes, that Mr. Walton received a letter sealed with a black seal.
"As I feared," he murmured, in a low, sad voice, gazing half-abstractedly upon the missive. He knew too well its contents. "Dear child! I saw this from the beginning."
And the old man's eyes became dim with moisture.
He had not erred in his conjecture. Lizzy Walton was dead.