tenderest and earliest ties clinging to them--an event so unlooked
for, so out of the true order of nature--we can only turn away and
weep. We can extract from such an affliction but few thoughts of
comfort. All is dreary, and blank, and desolate.

"Bring me my children," the dying mother said, rousing up from a
state of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought
both her mother and her husband to her bedside.

"What did you want, dear Amanda?" asked the husband, laying his hand
gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of
coming dissolution.

"My dear babes," she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an
effort. "My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am
laid at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!"

Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning
her head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud.
The infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when
she had a little recovered herself.

"Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!" she said, with tender animation. "My
sweet, sweet baby! I cannot give you up!" And she clasped it to her
breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled
over her pale cheek. "And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?"
she asked.

Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was
brought in and lifted upon the bed.