a; are you?" asked Walter, a little anxiously.

"Yes, my son, I am," she said, smiling affectionately upon him. "Now let
us have our reading," turning over the leaves of her Bible as she spoke.
"We will take the twenty-third psalm. It is short, and so very sweet and
comforting."

They did so, Elsie making a few brief remarks, especially on the fourth
verse, which neither Rosie nor Walter ever forgot.

She followed them with a short prayer, and just at its close her father
came in, and, sending the children away, spent alone with his daughter
the few minutes that remained before the ringing of the breakfast bell.

He obeyed the summons, but she remained in her own apartments, a servant
carrying her meal to her.

It was something very unusual for her, and, joined to an unusual silence
on the part of their grandfather, accompanied by a sad countenance and
occasional heavy sigh, and similar symptoms shown by both Grandma Rose
and Edward, excited surprise and apprehension on the part of the younger
members of the household.

Family worship, as was the rule followed immediately upon the conclusion
of the meal, and Mr. Dinsmore's feeling petition on behalf of the sick
one increased the alarm of Rosie and Zoe.

Both followed Edward out upon the veranda, asking anxiously what ailed
mamma.

At first he tried to parry their questions, but his own ill-concealed
distress only increased their alarm and rendered them the more
persistent.

"There is something serious ailing mamma," he said at length, "but
Cousin Arthur hopes soon to be able to relieve her. The cure is somewhat
doubtful, however, and that is what so distresses grandpa, grandma, and
me. Oh, let us all pray for her, pleading the Master's precious promise,
'If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall
ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.'

"Mamma has sent for my sisters Elsie and Violet. She wants as many of
her children and grandchildren near her as possible; but Harold and
Herbert have to be left out because, being so far away, there is not
time to summon them."

"O Ned," cried Rosie, in an agony of terror, "is--is mamma in immediate
danger? What--what is it Cousin Arthur is going to do?"

"A--surgical operation is, he says, the only--only thing that can
possibly save her life, and--he hopes it will."

"But he isn't certain? O mamma, mamma!" cried Rosie, bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of weeping.