o her.

His voice began softly:

"You are too good and sweet to be so devoured of beasts. In your little
Northern home they are waiting for you. To-morrow you will go back to
them."

He placed his hand, which was soft and warm and broad, over her eyes.
His voice was like velvet, soft yet elastic.

"When you wake you will hate what you have been. No power can keep you
here. You will go back to the simple life from which you should never
have departed. You will love simple things and the pleasures of your
native place."

Her face was turned upward, but her eyelids had fallen.

"When you wake you will not remember your life here. You will be a girl
again, unstained and ready to begin life without remorse and without
accusing memory. When I leave you at your door to-night, you will belong
to the kingdom of good and not to the kingdom of evil."

He dropped her hands and pointed across the park.

"Now go to that gray house. Ring the bell, and you will be housed for
the night. _Remember you are mine._ When the bell rings you will
'wake.'"

She moved away without looking back--moved mechanically like one still
in sleep.

The man watched her until the door opened and admitted her; then he
passed on into the shadow of the narrow street.

And this the listener gravely asked:

"One was chosen, the other left. Were the others less in need of
grace?"

BEFORE THE LOW GREEN DOOR.

Matilda Bent was dying; there was no doubt of that now, if there had
been before. The gruff old physician--one of the many overworked and
underpaid country doctors--shook his head and pushed by Joe Bent, her
husband, as he passed through the room which served as dining room,
sitting room, and parlor. The poor fellow slouched back to his chair by
the stove as if dazed, and before he could speak again the doctor was
gone.

Mrs. Ridings was just coming up the walk as the doctor stepped out of
the door.

"O doctor, how is she?"

"She is a dying woman, madam."

"Oh! don't say that, doctor. What's the matter?"

"Cancer."

"Then the news was true----"

"I don't know anything of the news, Mrs. Ridings, but Mrs. Bent is dying
from the effects of a cancer primarily, which she has had for
years--since her last child, which died in infancy, you remember."

"But, doctor, she never told me----"

"Neither did she tell me. But no matter now. I have done all I can for
her. If you can make death any easier for her, go and do it. You wil