Who would comfort him when she
was gone or speak to him words of love?
Softly the chamber door unclosed, and Dora Deane looked in; but
seeing them thus together she stole away into the garden, where
the early spring grass was just starting into life, and there,
weeping bitterly, she too prayed that Ella might not die. But
neither tears nor prayers were of avail to save her. Still for
weeks she lingered, and the soft June air, stealing in through the
open window, had more than once lifted the golden curls from off
her fading brow, and more than one bouquet of sweet wild blossoms
had been laid upon her pillow, ere the midnight hour, when, with
anguish at their hearts, Howard Hastings and Dora Deane watched
together by her side, and knew that she was dying. There had been
long, dreary nights of wakefulness, and the worn-out sufferer had
asked at last that she might die--might sleep the dreamless sleep
from which she would never waken. And Howard Hastings, as night
after night went by, and the laughing blue eyes which had won his
early love grew dim with constant waking, had felt that it would
be better when his loved one was at rest.
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