Subsequently, becoming more reconciled and cheerful, she writes:

"I am sorrowful, but always rejoicing.' appropriate the touching exclamation of the queen of France, when bereaved of a lovely daughter: 'My God! I have a child the less, but thou hast an angel more!' Our Felicia, no longer ours, but God's, is an angel. I entered the room when she was dying. She threw her little arms around my neck, and exclaimed-'O ma! don't weep so! I am not sick!' After a few moments, she said-'Who made that prayer? O! was it not beautiful?' Then she spoke of sweet music;' stretched up her arms; beckoned, as if to some one at a distance; exclaimed -I am coming!' and died. Is she not an angel? Is not our treasure accumulating in heaven? The flower was too fair to bloom without the enclosure of Eden. It flourishes in a purer atmosphere and a more congenial soil.

I am

"This affliction has been a blessing to me. fast transferring my affections to a better world. O, how can I be otherwise than heavenly mindedheavenly in all my hopes, and aims, and tendencies-when heaven is thus gathering to itself whatever my heart clings to below!

'For destined though I am to see

Each star from earth's horizon driven,

I know that brighter ones for me

The while are lighting up in heaven!'

"Yes, I am more than reconciled. The lambs are safer with the Shepherd; and Jesus saith to the weeping parent-Suffer them to come unto me!' Who would not open the gate, and let the imprisoned angel go? My star is not faded from the firmament, but gone down undimmed, to rise in immortal splendor. Not a relative followed her to the grave; but no matter the angels were there-ministering spirits of the living-guardians of the holy dead! They have marked the little mound piled over the young sleeper's bosom; and they will know where to come for the reänimated and immortalized in the first resurrection.”

About this time must have been written the following pathetic lines, found among her papers after her death:

"All wither'd, like the autumn leaf,

My joyous hopes, alas, have perished;
The frost of death, the storms of grief,
Have blighted all the buds I cherished.

"Flown is my bird of Paradise,

And hush'd her pleasant song forever;
Fallen my star from out the skies,
And quenched, to be rekindled never.

"And thou afar, my life, my light,

Art bowed in sickness and in sorrow;
And I, who sigh in dreams to-night,

May wake, a widow'd soul, to-morrow.*

*Mrs. C. had received tidings of my extreme illness of yellow fever on my way up the Mississippi.

"But why, my stricken heart, complain
Of what thy Father's love is sending;
The wormwood cup of grief and pain,
With sweetest drops of mercy blending?

"Away, ye gloomy thoughts, away!
Return again, ye gleams of gladness!
Awake, my lute, a lightsome lay!

I'll sing, and sing away my sadness.

"For lo! the angel of the dawn

The radiance from his wings is flinging;
The night is spent, the clouds are gone,

The flow'rets bloom, and birds are singing."

Alone, among strangers, her idol torn from her embrace, herself in feeble and fast declining health, it was natural that her desolate heart should pour forth its longings to see once more "the dear denizens of The Grove." This feeling originated the following lines to her brother Thales:

"We grew from early infancy,
Together side by side-
Together sat beneath the thorn,
And roamed the meadows wide-

"Together chased the butterfly,

And plucked the forest flowers;

And deemed the days and weeks the while
So many pleasant hours-

"Together warbled with the birds,
Or listened to their song,

As sauntering side by side we went,
And hand in hand along-

"Together watched the fleecy clouds O'er azure seas above;

And thought the angels in them sat,
And smiled upon our love!

"O! sweetly did our simple souls
As streams together glide!
And joy to joy, and hope to hope,
As bird to bird, replied!

"Ah, brother dear! the fond caress
And joyous dream are o'er;
And I, who loved thy face so well,
May see that face no more!

"For rivers now between us roll,
And hills between us loom;
And I, in slow but sure decay,
Am tending to the tomb!

"And hard it seems to meet my fate,
Afar from friends so dear;
With none but strangers round my bed,

And strangers round my bier!

"O, once again! but once again!
And then, without a sigh,

In sweet content, and cheerful hope,
I lay me down and die!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FORD OF JORDAN.

"The spoiler set

His seal of silence; but there beamed a smile
So calm and holy on that marble brow,
Death gazed and left it there; he dared not steal
The signet ring of heaven!"-Sigourney.

A FRIGHTFUL epidemic now prevailed in Covington. My daughter was among the first that fell. Mrs. Cross, worn with sickness and wasted with sorrow, dwelt amidst the dying and the dead, who lay scattered around her like the leaves of autumn. To use her own language, "Scarcely a family escaped the visitation, scarcely a house was without its dead." This melancholy state of things, no doubt, contributed to her mental depression, and operated against her recovery. About the last of October she experienced a pulmonary hemorrhage, which brought her to the brink of the grave. Physician and friends despaired of her life. At this sad crisis, all her desires concentred in one intense wish to see once more her husband. This gratified, she "would be content to die."

On the evening of the nineteenth of November, I entered her room. She was sitting in a rocking chair, convalescent, but sadly wasted, her pale countenance beautified by suffering. She stretched