In a few days the Santon family were to part with Natalie.  It was in vain they had urged upon her to remain with them another season, for as much as she had become attached to them all, she longed to see her home once more.  Even Winnie failed to keep time with her usually joyous spirits, and there was one to whom this parting was not to be thought of.  Mr. Delwood had as yet received no positive assurance, that his unmistakable sentiments towards Natalie were reciprocated, and yet he was confident that she regarded him with no common interest.  He had read it in her soul, but he would hear from her own lips if happiness or misery was to be his through life, and it was with a nervous step that he wended his way on this last evening of her stay in Boston, that he might hear his fate.  As he drew near the house, he observed, though early in the evening, but one dim light gleaming from an upper apartment, and as he reached the gate it was fast, and a porter stood within, who, to Delwood’s hurried question if all was well, as he threw him a gold-piece, replied in a sad tone—­“kind sir, my orders are to receive no one, as my mistress is dying, or you should have admittance at once; but I know that you, of all others, could serve to lighten the blow to my master, and if you take the responsibility, you shall be admitted.”

“Leave that with me,” he replied, “you shall not be censured,” and with assumed calmness of manner, he entered.  Noiselessly he opened the outer door, proceeding to the upper drawing-room, which opened to the room of the dying one.  Mr. Santon sat with his face buried in his hands, sobbing aloud.  Mr. Delwood took him tenderly by the hand, and whispered a few words in his ear, which seemed to rouse him from the dreadful state of mind to which he had yielded.  “You find here a house of mourning,” he said, “but your presence is most welcome.”

“What can I do for you in this trying hour?” asked Delwood; “can I be of any assistance?”

“There is nothing to be done but to submit to the will of God,” he answered, “and I pray that I may have strength so to do.”  The door of the chamber of death was opened, and the physician summoned Mr. Santon to his dying wife’s bedside.  Delwood stood in the door; pale, but not emaciated were the features upon which death had set his seal, her last moment was near, but she had strength and consciousness supported by the Sea-flower, to say a few parting words; with one hand in that of her husband, the other upon the head of her grief-stricken daughter, she said:  “farewell, my dearest husband; it is but a little parting; you will meet me there at last.”  Turning to the Sea-flower, with her hand still upon the head of her daughter, she added, “my child will soon be motherless; through you, she is what I could wish to see her; and when I am gone, will you never lose sight of her? make her to be like yourself!” In a feeble voice she continued, “thank God that we may see heaven