There was no abatement of speed after we struck the hills:  what was lost in going up was regained in going down.  The mettle of those California-bred horses was wonderful; the quick beating of their hoofs upon the graveled road was as regular as the motion of machinery, steam-driven.  It was an exciting ride, and there was a weirdness in the sound of the night-breeze floating by us, and ghostly, shapes seemed looking at us from above and below, as we wound our way through the hills, while the bright stars shone like funeral-tapers over a world of death.  Death! how vivid and awful was its reality to me as I looked up at those shining worlds on high, and then upon the earth wrapped in darkness below!  Death! his sable coursers are swift, and we may be too late!  The driver shared my thoughts, and lashed the panting horses to yet greater speed.  My pulses beat rapidly as I counted the moments.

“Here we are!” he exclaimed, as we dashed down the hill and brought up at the gate.  “It is eight minutes to nine,” he added, glancing at his watch by the light of a lamp shining through the window.

“She is alive, but speechless, and going fast,” said the father, in a broken voice, as I entered the house.

He led me to the chamber of the dying girl; The seal of death was upon her.  I bent above her, and a look of recognition came into her eyes.  Not a moment was to be lost.

“If you know me, my child, and can enter the meaning of what I say, indicate the fact if you can.”

There was a faint smile and a slight but significant inclination of the fair head as it lay enveloped with its wealth of chestnut curls.  With her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes turned upward, the dying girl lay in listening attitude, while in a few words I explained the meaning of the sacred rite and pointed her to the Lamb of God as the one sacrifice for sin.  The family stood round the bed in awed and tearful silence.  As the crystal sacramental drops fell upon her brow a smile flashed quickly over the pale face, there was a slight movement of the head—­and she was gone!  The upward look continued, and the smile never left the fair, sweet face.  We fell upon our knees, and the prayer that followed was not for her, but for the bleeding hearts around the couch where she lay smiling in death.

Dave Douglass was one of that circle of Tennesseans who took prominent parts in the early history of California.  He belonged to the Sumner County Douglasses, of Tennessee, and had the family warmth of heart, impulsiveness, and courage, that nothing could daunt.  In all the political contests of the early days he took an active part, and was regarded as an unflinching and unselfish partisan by his own party, and as an openhearted and generous antagonist by the other.  He was elected Secretary of State, and served the people with fidelity and efficiency.  He was a man of a powerful physical frame, deep-chested, ruddy-, faced, blue-eyed, with