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Her step was feeble, but decided; she wept not, although there

were traces of tears on her countenance. There was a tranquillity

and profundity in her grief, which absorbed all her powers. But

it was not her appearance alone which excited compassion in

hearts nearly closed to every human feeling; she held in her arms

a young girl about nine years of age, dead, but dressed with

careful precision; her hair divided smoothly on her pale

forehead, and clothed in a robe of the purest white. She was not

lying, but was seated, on the arm of the lady, her head leaning

on her shoulder; you would have thought she breathed, if a little

white hand had not hung down with inanimate weight, and her head

reposed on the shoulder of her mother, with an abandonment more

decided than that of sleep. Of her mother! it was indeed her

mother! If the resemblance of their features had not told it, you

would have known it by the expression of that fair and lovely

countenance!