Bobby fell asleep at last, with his head on Peggy's knee, the sound of his regular breathing mingling strangely with the lap of the water which crept nearer and ever nearer to them up the cave. Many thoughts came to Peggy that night, as she sat watching the light of the lantern flicker upon the rough walls. Father's reproachful face seemed to rise up out of the darkness, asking 'Where is Bobby? What have you done with my little boy?' Good resolutions made, and alas! too often forgotten, crowded in now upon her remembrance, and as she listened to the roar of the river, she thought how strange it would seem that they two, so full of life, might in a few hours be floating very still and silent upon that flowing stream, with the world only a memory behind them. But Peggy had been too much with the Rector to have any fear of death. He, she knew, viewed this life as merely the stepping-stone to a fuller and richer life beyond, and the body as but the worthless husk of the soul, so with a dreamy feeling that somehow Mr. Howell had set the gate of the next world ajar, and allowed some of the glory to steal out and comfort her, the child closed her tired eyes, and slept as quietly as if she had been safe in her bed at home, and the storm and the rushing water nothing but a vision of the night.