With rigid limbs she tottered to the table, and laid her hand on the velvet pall; with closed eyes she drew it down, then held her breath and looked.  There lay her idol, in the marble arms of death.  Ah! how matchlessly beautiful, wrapped in her last sleep!  The bright golden curls glittered around the snowy brow, and floated like wandering sunlight over the arms and shoulders.  The tiny waxen fingers clasped each other as in life, and the delicately chiseled lips were just parted, as though the sleeper whispered.  Beulah’s gaze dwelt upon this mocking loveliness, then the arms were thrown wildly up, and, with a long, wailing cry, her head sank heavily on the velvet cushion, beside the cold face of her dead darling.  How long it rested there she never knew.  Earth seemed to pass away; darkness closed over her, and for a time she had no pain, no sorrow; she and Lilly were together.  All was black, and she had no feeling.  Then she was lifted, and the motion aroused her torpid faculties; she moaned and opened her eyes.  Dr. Hartwell was placing her on a sofa, and Mrs. Grayson stood by the table with a handkerchief over her eyes.  With returning consciousness came a raving despair; Beulah sprang from the strong arm that strove to detain her, and, laying one clinched hand on the folded fingers of the dead, raised the other fiercely toward Mrs. Grayson, and exclaimed almost frantically: 

“You have murdered her!  I knew it would be so, when you took my darling from my arms, and refused my prayer!  Aye, my prayer!  I knelt and prayed you, in the name of God, to let me see her once more; to let me hold her to my heart, and kiss her lips, and forehead, and little slender hands.  You scorned a poor girl’s prayer; you taunted me with my poverty, and locked me from my darling, my Lilly, my all!  Oh, woman! you drove me wild, and I cursed you and your husband.  Ha!  Has your wealth and splendor saved her?  God have mercy upon me, I feel as if I could curse you eternally.  Could you not have sent for me before she died?  Oh, if I could only have taken her in my arms, and seen her soft angel eyes looking up to me, and felt her little arms around my neck, and heard her say ‘sister’ for the last time!  Would it have taken a dime from your purse, or made you less fashionable, to have sent for me before she died?  ’Such measure as ye mete, shall be meted to you again.’  May you live to have your heart trampled and crushed, even as you have trampled mine!”

Her arm sank to her side, and once more the blazing eyes were fastened on the young sleeper; while Mrs. Grayson, cowering like a frightened child, left the room.  Beulah fell on her knees, and, crossing her arms on the table, bowed her head; now and then broken, wailing tones passed the white lips.  Dr. Hartwell stood in a recess of the window, with folded arms and tightly compressed mouth, watching the young mourner.  Once he moved toward her, then drew back, and a derisive smile distorted his features,