'MOTHER,' said Lottie May,' my head aches, and feels very, very warm. What can be the matter?'

'You are feverish, love, and require rest.'

So Mrs. May gave her child some herb-tea, and placed her in her little bed.

In the night, the mother was awakened by a little groan, and lay and listened half unconsciously for a few moments; then she heard the groan again.

'It's Lottie,' she said to herself; and springing softly from her bed, for fear of disturbing the child, she stepped to the side of its bed and whispered:

'Lottie!'

'Is that you, mother?'

'What's the matter, Lottie?'

'My head hurts me a little, mother;' and she groaned again as she clasped her hot hands over her soft, brown hair. Will

some water, mother?'

you give me

Mrs. May's hand trembled so that she could hardly pour out the water.;

but Lottie could not lift herself up to drink it, and the mother held her; then she lit the gas.

My God!' she exclaimed to herself, as she saw the red and purple cheeks, the large dark eyes, now larger than ever, and bloodshot; the vacant, wild look, and the little hands clasped tightly on the top of her head.

'Lottie! Lottie! Charlotte!' said Mrs. May; but Lottie did not answer for some moments; then she opened her eyes suddenly, more widely than ever, and said:

'Oh, mother, I've seen an angel, and its face was like yours; and there were two great wings, and glory all round it, mother; and it called, Lottie, Lottie, Lottie.'

Mrs. May trembled again, but she did not show it, or change her countenance before her child.

Then she rang the bell for her maid, and told her to call John, and send him for Dr. Mason immediately; then she bathed the little sufferer in cold water, and laid her on the bed again until the Doctor came.

'WHEN was she taken, Mrs. May?' said Dr. Mason.

'She went to bed feverish; I was awakened an hour ago by the child's groans, and found her so.'

'What have you done?'

'Bathed her in cold water; that is all.'

'All wrong,' said the Doctor; and he felt her pulse, gave her some calomel, told Mrs. May to keep her very warm, and the windows closed, and went home again, wondering why people would get sick at night, he did so hate night-practice; or if they must be sick, why could they not wait until morning to be treated.

Lottie lay in an unquiet doze, and Mrs. May sat by her side all the long night. Oh, how her heart yearned for her child! and she prayed silently that the flower might not be gathered from her; indeed, she never knew how much she loved her little idol until now, when the shadow of Death loomed up like a black cloud on the horizon of her imagination, at which she looked with sickening anxiety. Would it bring thunder, and lightning, and destruction, or pass on with but a genial shower, leaving fresh greenness and life in its path? Was it the shadow of Death, or did the all-devouring tyrant himself hover near? And she grasped the child's hand, as she thought of the angel's calling, 'Lottie, Lottie, Lottie,' as if she would so keep Heaven from taking away her treasure; and in the long night-watches it recurred again and again; and each time her heart ceased to beat, a feeling of dread and awe overpowered her, and a tremor passed over her frame like the feeling from sudden fright in the darkness; yet apart from her child there was no fear in that mother's heart: she felt that she could part with life itself to save her little one.

At last the long, weary, desolate night had gone, and the sun shone into the room fitfully as the clouds passed over it.

Lottie opened her eyes, and looked up at her mother, and at the sunshine, and put her arms round her mother's neck, and said, in a low, weak, gentle voice:

'What's the matter, mother? You look so sick! I'm not ill now, mother; my headache's gone.' Then she looked up at the sun again and said: 'Mother, I'll get up now.' The mother's heart beat wildly with hope as she spoke, but the child could not move.

'But, mother, I'm better, a great deal better; I'm only a little sick. Kiss me, mother. I saw you by my bed last night, but couldn't speak then.'

She breathed harder from the effort she had made, and lay perfectly still, except her large eyes, which followed every movement of her mother about the room.

Then Dr. Jones came, and shrugged his shoulders at what had been done, though he declined interfering, but Mrs. May insisted, and called in old Dr. Armour, the friend of her father's youth also; and the three doctors met and consulted' about the poor girl.

And Lottie was sometimes worse, and at others better; and at times she knew no one, not even her poor mother. It almost broke her heart to see the child stare at her so vacantly, and say such strange things. Then her eyes would change, and she would look up in her mother's face and smile, and be again her own dear Lottie.

In this manner two solemn, sad, and weary days of hope deferred passed away, and Lottie grew weaker and weaker.

MRS. MAY sat by the side of her sleeping child hour after hour, and gazed at the shrunken hands, and rough crimson cheeks, and listened to her deep breathing, every breath of which seemed like a groan. Oh, how freely would she have given her life to bring back the hue of health to those fevered cheeks! She took up her embroidery, to try and wile away an hour of this torturing uncertainty, but the needle trembled in her hand, for the work itself was a seat for Lottie's little chair; she could not make a stitch. Then she took up her favorite author, but the letters seemed blurred; she could not distinguish a word; her pen to write, but the tears fell and mixed with the ink- emblem of her fast-coming black despair. Then she knelt by the couch of her child to pray, but she could not; her prayers were the 'groanings which cannot be uttered;' and she arose and went to the window, and looked up towards the sun, but there were clouds over the sky; it seemed as if there were clouds over the sunshine always now. In the street she saw Dr. Jones' and Dr. Mason's gigs approaching; but she left the room, for she began to lose faith in them, and went into the garden, where there was more air to breathe; she sometimes thought she would choke in the rooms, they seemed so small now.

When she came back, Dr. Armour was there also.

'Dr. Armour,' said Mrs. May, with an appealing yet firm look, 'will my child die?'

Heaven grant she may not!'

'Doctor, I have steeled my heart to bear even her death.

Will my

child die?' And her look became more firm and grave, but she held her hand tightly over her heart.

'I am not omniscient, Madam; your own feelings probably tell you as much as all my science can. I fear the worst.

Mrs. May rose to her feet with a fixed and vacant stare, and moved slowly forward through the rooms. She had never yet in her heart thought that her child would die; woman-like, she had hoped against hope. For a moment she looked round vacantly; then all the scenes of those three days of torture crowded to her brain; the blood-shot eyes, the red, furred cheeks, the breathing a succession of groans, the Doctor's words, his look; and then like a flash of lightning through her brain passed the words, 'Lottie must die,' and she uttered a piercing scream and fell senseless on the floor.

When she came to herself, she was on her bed, and Dr. Armour standing by her. Recollection returned, and she said, with an unnatural calmness which startled him:

'Doctor, is my child dead?'

'Not yet. But do not rise, Madam, you are too weak.'

Mrs. May looked at him with a surprised look, then rose and went to. her child's bed-side. Lottie knew her mother; and when Mrs. May took her hand, she felt it pulled slightly, and bent down her head until her lips touched those of her child, and she felt them move a little to kiss her; then she tried to speak, but could not; and the mother stood by the side of the bed with glazed eyes, in which were no tears, for she could not weep. Oh, how she wanted to weep, but could not, and her eyes burned her as she gazed at the dying girl.

The doctors stood round in silence, for they knew that she was dying; the mother bent over her in silence, for she felt that she was dying; and the child gasped, and gasped,and a slight gurgle was heard in her throat, and she lifted her head suddenly, and said, with a faint voice, 'Mother!' and fell back on the pillow quite dead.

'GOD of mercy, help me to bear this!' said Mrs. May. 'ALMIGHTY FATHER, help me to bear this!' and she fell on her knees and clasped her hands in agony.

THE doctors slowly and silently left the room, and went down stairs, and they stepped into the parlor, and shut the door to have a chat before they separated.

Mrs. May started suddenly from her kneeling position, and looked earnestly at her child, last hope of her heart, last link that bound her to earth; and she hurriedly felt her feet, hands, heart, and put her ear down to the still, silent lips, then glided swiftly and noiselessly down stairs, to the back parlor, where the folding-doors were ajar.

Lower down; the breathing showed that. I was afraid we were to be kept up all night.'

'I think you gave her too much calomel, Mason.'

'Not a bit, not a bit: she should have had more yesterday, instead of your arsenic.'

Well, well. Curious case.'

'Very.'

'Gentlemen,' said the old gray-headed Dr. Armour, who had wept at the death-bed, and had not spoken before; gentlemen, it is unprofessional for me to say so, and late in life to acknowledge it, but this is all wrong somewhere. The child should not have died, and I must

Mrs. May had been checked by the tone of indifference, almost of levity, of the first speakers; now she threw open the doors, and stood there, drawn to her full height, and with her earnest eyes dilating, with a look that made them shrink as if they had seen a spectre: but she only said:

Heaven help ye, gentlemen, in your extreme need. Dr. Armour, for GOD's sake, come back and tell me if the child's dead!'

They returned, but the corpse was growing cold.

Mrs. May clasped her hands round its neck, bent her head over its face, tear after tear rolled down her cheeks, and there she sat through the long night, clinging to the garment that had held her Lottie.

She

MRS. MAY sat by the little coffin that contained her child's form had grown much older in the two long, weary, solemn days that Lottie had been dead. She could look at the death-sleep, and the little hands crossed on the bosom, and the closed lids over those dark, expressive eyes, and place fresh roses, and geraniums, and heliotrope, about the calm, lifelike corpse, without weeping now; but there was a deep, fixed, almost stern expression of grief on her pale, classic face, which seemed to ask no sympathy, and was feeding on the springs of her own life. She could not pray yet. Often had she fallen on her knees since the little one's last faint Mother!' but no utterance followed, for her heart only asked in agony, Why, oh, why had HE taken away her Lottie? And thoughts high and deep passed through her mind, of time and space, and heaven and immortality, until imagination had wandered and lost itself in the dim confines which separate thought from the impenetrable mysteries which surround us, until all consciousness of time and space in her present life were lost; and then the question would recur, did He take her away, or was she sent, uncalled from the earth, by unholy errors, by poisoning drugs; and she shrank from the question shuddering.

Carriage after carriage drove up to the door, the rooms were filled with friends and acquaintances of the mourner and the mourned, and a solemnlooking man opened the Bible, and read, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!' Then he said many beautiful things about the child, which he had known from its birth; but Mrs. May could not listen, and, sobbing out her anguish, left the room for why had Hɛ taken away her Lottie? After the ceremony was over, she returned, and stood by the coffin, and looked at her child for the last time. She thought of all her grace and repose, even amongst her little play-mates, and all her arch and winning ways, and hot tears fell on the cold form. Then they closed the coffin, and placed it in the carriage with Mrs. May alone; she would have it so. They drove slowly down Broadway, and Mrs. May was startled by the noise of carts and omnibuses. It seemed strange that they drove on so furiously while Lottie was carried by; and crowds of people lined the streets, all gay and unheeding. Mrs. May drew down the curtains, and hid them from her sight. They passed over the South Ferry, and so on to Greenwood; and between the beautiful sculptures and white monuments, (standing over buried hopes, like the rainbow over the abyss of the cataract, or the fair face over a crushed heart,) until they came to Lottie's grave. It