April passed. May was passing; and the end of Jane Halliburton was at hand. There was no secret now about her state; but she was going away very peacefully.  
In this month, May, there occurred another in the of the cathedral. Little Gar—but he was growing too big now to be called Little Gar—proved to be the successful candidate; so that both boys were now in the choir.
 
"It will be such a help to me, learning to chant, should I ever try for a canonry," boasted Gar, who never tired of telling them that he meant to be a clergyman.
 
"Gar, dear, did you ever sit down and count the cost?" asked Mrs. Halliburton. "I fear it will not be your luck to go to college."
 
" omnia vincit," cried out Gar. "You have heard us stumbling over our Latin often enough, mamma, to know what that means. Frank will need to count the cost, too, if he is ever to make himself into a barrister; and he says he will be one."
 
"Oh, you two vain boys!" cried Jane, laughing.
 
"Mamma," up Janey from the sofa—and her breathing was laboured now—"is there harm in their wishing this?"
 
"Not at all. They are laudable aims. Only Frank and Gar are so poor and friendless that I fear the hopes are too ambitious to end in anything but disappointment."
 
Janey called Gar to her, and pulled his face down to a level with hers, whispering softly, "Strive well, Gar, and trust in God."
 
Later, when Jane had to be out on an indispensable errand, Dobbs came in to sit with Janey. She brought her some jelly in a saucer.
 
"I am nearly tired of it, Dobbs," said Janey. "I grow tired of everything. And I don't like to say so, because it seems so ungrateful."
 
"It's the nature of illness to get tired of things," responded Dobbs, who thought it was her mission never to cease Janey up with hope. "You'll be better when the hot weather comes in."
 
"No, I shan't, Dobbs. I shall never get better now."
 
A combination of feelings, indignation predominating, nearly took away Dobbs's breath. "Who on earth has been putting that grim notion in your head?" asked she.
 
"It is true, Dobbs."
 
"True!" ejaculated Dobbs. "Who has been saying it to you? I want to know that."
 
"Mamma for one. She——"
 
"Of all the stupids!" burst Dobbs, drowning what Janey was about to say. "To frighten the child by telling her she's going to die!"
 
"It does not frighten me, Dobbs. I like to lie and think of it."
 
Dobbs fell into a doubt whether Janey was in her senses. "Like to lie and think of being screwed down in a , and put into the cold ground, and left there till the day!" uttered she.
 
"Oh, but, Dobbs, you must know better than that," returned Jane. "We are not put into the coffin; it is only our bodies that are put into the coffin; we go into the world of departed spirits."
 
"De-par-ted what?" ejaculated Dobbs, whose notions of the future—the life after this life—were not very definite; and who could not have been more astonished had Jane begun to talk to her in Greek.
 
"Mamma has always tried to explain these things to us," said Jane. "She has made them as clear to us as they can be made, and she has taught us not to fear death. She says a great mistake is often made by those who bring up children. They are taught to run away from death as something gloomy and , instead of being shown its bright side."
 
"Well, I never heard the like!" exclaimed Dobbs, lost in wonder. "How can there be a bright side to death?—in a coffin, with nails and tin-tacks that screw you down?"
 
Tears filled Janey's eyes. "Oh, Dobbs, you must learn better than that, or how will you ever be reconciled to death? Don't you know that when we die, we—our spirit, that is, for it is our spirit that lives and thinks—leave our body behind us? There's no more consciousness in our body, and it is put into the grave till the last day. It is like the shell that the silkworm casts away when it comes into the : the life is in the moth: not in the cast-off shell. You cannot think what trouble mamma has taken with us always to explain these things; and she has talked to me so much lately."
 
"And where does the spirit go—by which, I suppose, you mean the soul?" asked Dobbs.
 
Janey shook her head, to express her ignorance at the best. "It is all a mystery," she said; "but mamma has taught us to believe that there's a place for the departed, and that we shall be there. It is not to be supposed that the soul, a thing of life, could be boxed up in a coffin, Dobbs. When Jesus Christ said to the thief on the cross, 'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,' he meant that world. It is a place of light and rest."
 
"And the good and bad are there together?"
 
Again Janey shook her head. "Don't you remember, in the of the rich man and the beggar, there was a great between them, and Abraham said that it could not be passed? I dare say it will be very peaceful and happy there: quite different from this world, where there's so much trouble and sickness. Why should I be afraid of death, Dobbs?"
 
Dobbs sat looking at her, and was some minutes before she spoke. "Not afraid to die!" she slowly said. "Well, I should be."
 
Janey's eyes were wet. "Nobody need be afraid to die when they have learnt to trust in God. Don't you know," she answered with something like enthusiasm, "that many people, when dying, have seen Jesus waiting for them? What does it matter, then, where our bodies are............