“It’s just what I’ve been foreboding!” said Marie; “it’s just what has been preying on my health, from day to day, bringing me downward to the grave, though nobody regards it.  I have seen this, long.  St. Clare, you will see, after a while, that I was right.”

“Which will afford you great consolation, no doubt!” said St. Clare, in a dry, bitter tone.

Marie lay back on a lounge, and covered her face with her cambric handkerchief.

Eva’s clear blue eye looked earnestly from one to the other.  It was the calm, comprehending gaze of a soul half loosed from its earthly bonds; it was evident she saw, felt, and appreciated, the difference between the two.

She beckoned with her hand to her father.  He came and sat down by her.

“Papa, my strength fades away every day, and I know I must go.  There are some things I want to say and do,—­that I ought to do; and you are so unwilling to have me speak a word on this subject.  But it must come; there’s no putting it off.  Do be willing I should speak now!”

“My child, I am willing!” said St. Clare, covering his eyes with one hand, and holding up Eva’s hand with the other.

“Then, I want to see all our people together.  I have some things I must say to them,” said Eva.

“Well,” said St. Clare, in a tone of dry endurance.

Miss Ophelia despatched a messenger, and soon the whole of the servants were convened in the room.

Eva lay back on her pillows; her hair hanging loosely about her face, her crimson cheeks contrasting painfully with the intense whiteness of her complexion and the thin contour of her limbs and features, and her large, soul-like eyes fixed earnestly on every one.

The servants were struck with a sudden emotion.  The spiritual face, the long locks of hair cut off and lying by her, her father’s averted face, and Marie’s sobs, struck at once upon the feelings of a sensitive and impressible race; and, as they came in, they looked one on another, sighed, and shook their heads.  There was a deep silence, like that of a funeral.

Eva raised herself, and looked long and earnestly round at every one.  All looked sad and apprehensive.  Many of the women hid their faces in their aprons.

“I sent for you all, my dear friends,” said Eva, “because I love you.  I love you all; and I have something to say to you, which I want you always to remember. . . .  I am going to leave you.  In a few more weeks you will see me no more—­”

Here the child was interrupted by bursts of groans, sobs, and lamentations, which broke from all present, and in which her slender voice was lost entirely.  She waited a moment, and then, speaking in a tone that checked the sobs of all, she said,