l
find some opiate powders there with directions. Keep the pain down at
all hazards. Don't let her suffer; that is useless. She is likely to
last a day or two--but if any change comes to-night, send for me."

When the good matron entered the dowdy, suffocating little room where
Matilda Bent lay gasping for breath, she was sick for a moment with
sympathetic pain. There the dying woman lay, her world narrowed to four
close walls, propped up on the pillows near the one little window. Her
eyes seemed very large and bright, and the brow, made prominent by the
sinking away of the cheeks, gave evidence that it was an uncommon woman
who lay there quietly waiting the death angel.

She smiled, and lifted her eyebrows in a ghastly way.

"O Marthy!" she breathed.

"Matildy, I didn't know you was so bad, or I'd 'a' come before. Why
didn't you let me know?" said Mrs. Ridings, kneeling by the bed and
taking the ghostly hands of the sufferer in her own warm and soft palms.
She shuddered as she kissed the thin lips.

"I think you'll soon be around agin," she added, in the customary
mockery of an attempt at cheer. The other woman started slightly,
turned her head, and gazed on her old friend long and intently. The
hollowness of her neighbor's words stung her.

"I hope not, Marthy--I'm ready to go. I want to go. I don't care to
live."

The two women communed by looking for a long time in each other's eyes,
as if to get at the very secretest desires and hopes of the heart. Tears
fell from Martha's eyes upon the cold and nerveless hands of her
friend--poor, faithful hands, hacked and knotted and worn by thirty
years of ceaseless daily toil. They lay there motionless upon the
coverlet, pathetic protest for all the world to see.

"O Matildy, I wish I could do something for you! I want to help you so.
I feel so bad that I didn't come before. Ain't they somethin'?"

"Yes, Marthy--jest set there--till I die--it won't be long," whispered
the pale lips. The sufferer, as usual, was calmer than her visitor, and
her eyes were thoughtful.

"I will! I will! But oh! must you go? Can't somethin' be done. Don't yo'
want the minister to be sent for?"

"No, I'm all ready. I ain't afraid to die. I ain't worth savin' now. O
Marthy! I never thought I'd come to this--did you? I never thought I'd
die--so early in life--and die--unsatisfied."

She lifted her head a little as she gasped out these words with an
intensity of utterance that thrilled he