So old John came in, and ‘Sir,’ said he, ’the master will be glad to see you.’  And Dan Loftus found himself in the study; and the good doctor and he wrung one another’s hands for a long time.

‘Oh, Dan—­Dan—­she’s gone—­little Lily.’

‘You’ll see her again, Sir—­oh, you’ll see her again.’

’Oh, Dan!  Dan!  Till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.  Oh, Dan, a day’s so long—­how am I to get over the time?’

‘The loving Lord, Sir, will find a way.’

’But, oh! was there no pitying angel to stay the blow—­to plead for a few years more of life?  I deserved it—­oh, Dan, yes!—­I know it—­I deserved it.  But, oh! could not the avenger have pierced me, without smiting my innocent darling?’

’Oh! she was taken in love, not in judgment, Sir—­my pastor—­but in love.  It was the voice of the Redeemer that called her.’

And honest Dan repeated, through his sobs, a verse of that ’Song of Songs,’ which little Lily had loved so well—­

’My well-beloved spake, and said unto me:  Arise, my love, my fair one, and come thy way.’

The old man bowed his sorrowful head listening.

‘You never saw anything so beautiful,’ said he after a while.  ’I think, Dan, I could look at her for ever.  I don’t think it was partiality, but it seems to me there never was—­I never saw a creature like her.’

‘Oh, noble! noble!’ sobbed poor Dan.

The doctor took him by the arm, and so into the solemn room.

‘I think you’d like to see her, Dan?’

‘I would—­I would indeed, Sir.’

And there was little Lily, never so like the lily before.  Poor old Sally had laid early spring flowers on the white coverlet.  A snow-drop lay by her pale little finger and thumb, just like a flower that has fallen from a child’s hand it its sleep.  He looked, at her—­the white angelic apparition—­a smile, or a light upon the face.

’Oh, my darling, my young darling, gone—­“He is not a man as I am, that I should answer him."’

But poor Dan, loudly crying, repeated the noble words of Paul, that have spoken down to us through the sorrows of nigh two thousand years—­

’For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep.  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.’

And so there was a little pause, and the old man said—­

’It was very good of you to come to me, my good young friend, in my helplessness and shipwreck, for the Lord hath hid himself from me; but he speaks to his desolate creature, my good Dan, through your gracious lips.  My faith!—­I thought I had faith till it was brought to the test, and then it failed!  But my good friend, Loftus, was sent to help me—­to strengthen the feeble knees.’