was a general look of fading, and a show of
lassitude and weakness, as if the essence
of her life were slowly evaporating; as if she
were resolving back to the ethereal elements
which had met together for a brief season in
her. She was dying, she often said, from
the desire to die; from the want of motive
of life; she had nothing to live for.

Mrs. Hibbert nursed her daughter as any
such woman would nurse a fading girl—
with conscientiousness, but with hardness;
doing her duty, but doing it without a shadow
of tenderness. She had the best advice
Brighton could afford, and she took care that
the medicines were given at the exact hours
prescribed, and without a fraction of
difference in the mode prescribed. Fruit and
good books were there in abundance; but all
wanted the living spirit.

On Estella the weight of consolation fell,
and no one could have fulfilled its duties
better. It was the spring time now, and she
would go out into the fields and lanes, and
bring home large bunches of forget-me-nots,
and primroses, and daisies, with sprays of
the wild rose and of the honeysuckle; and she
sang to the dying girl, and sometimes brought
her sketching-book and sketched the costumes
of Italy, the palaces of Genoa, and the glorious
water-streets of Venice; and she would sit
and talk to her of Italy, and tell her all that
would most interest her, being most unlike
the life of home. And she would tell her
anecdotes of Italian history and wild stories
of Italian romance; and then they would
talk of graver things —of the poetry of the
Old Church, of its power in the past, of its
marvellous union of wickedness and virtue;
and then they would speak of the angels and
of God; and both felt that one of them would
soon be face to face with the great mysteries
of the future, and would soon know of what
nature were the secrets of the world to come.
And all of poetry, of warmth, of glorious
vision, and high-souled thought —all of the
golden atmosphere of religion, in which art
and spiritual beauty, and spiritual purity, and
poetry and love were twined as silver cords
set round with pearls —all that lightened
Jessie's death-bed, and seemed to give a
voice to her own dumb thoughts, a form to
her own unshaped feelings, Estella shed there.

It was impossible that even the Everett
world could reject her for ever. It was
impossible that even Mrs. Hibbert could
continue indifferent to the beautiful young
woman who gave peace to her dying child;
and though the fact of Miss Este, as she was
called, being her disowned niece Estella,
never struck her, something that was not all
confessed admiration, but which afterwards
she believed to be natural instinct, drew her
nearer and nearer to the girl, and made her
at last love her with sincerity if not with
warmth. And when Jessie grew paler and
weaker hour by hour—when every one saw
that she was dying, and that only a few
days more stood like dusky spirits between
her and the quiet future —when Estella's
prayers were for peace: no longer for the
restoration which had become a mockery—
when sleepless eyes and haggard looks spoke
of the shadow of the death that was striding
on —then Jessie, taking Estella's hand and
laying it in her mother's, said, "Mamma, you
have another daughter now to fill my place!
Estella, your niece and my sweet sister and
consolation, will comfort you when I am
gone, and will take the place in your heart
where I have lived."

It was too solemn a moment, then, for Mrs.
Hibbert to fall back into her old fortress of
pride and hardness. By the side of her dying
child, she became womanly and Christian;
although, even then, the struggle was a hard
one, and the effort cost her dear. She bent
over Estella, kneeling there and weeping, and
saying slowly and with a still gravity not
wholly ungentle, "I accept the trust now,
Estella, and forgive our father for the sin
he committed and for the shame that he
wrought. Your place shall be, as my dear
child has said, in my heart; and we will
mutually forgive, and pray to be forgiven."

Jessie smiled. "That is all I have hoped
and prayed for," she said faintly; "be a
mother to her as you have been to me, and
let the future make up for the short-coming
of the past!" And she turned her face
towards the last rays of the sunlight streaming
in through the open window.

A bird sang on a tree just opposite; the
waves murmured pleasantly among the
shells and seaweed on the shore; the sun,
sinking down in his golden sleep, flung one
last stream of glory on the marble brow and
long locks of the dying girl. It was a word
of blessing for the past, and of baptism
for the future. Jessie held her mother's
hand in one of hers; the other clasped Paul's
and Estella's held together. "Blessed by
love," she murmured, "redeemed by love—
God, save those who trust in thee, and for
thy sake pardon others —Thou, whose name
and essence are love and mercy!"

        THE GOBLINS OF THE MARSH.
                      A MASQUE.

Scene. - Some low, watery grounds to the East of
        London. Twilight: heavy fogs rising. Several
        Jack-o'-Lanthorns, each animated by a Goblin,
        flickering about the reedy pools.

                           First Goblin,
             Who is some way apart from the rest.

What a sweet night to be padding about!
The sun is low, and the light's nearly out;
The mists are thick, and slow, and leaden,
And through them the marsh-fires quiver and
         redden
Over the pools where the mosses deaden.
— Ho, ho, ye fellows, dancing and shaking
In the crawling steam which the swamp is making,