ng--you'll let me, won't you?"

"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish
about asking when there's anything I really want done."

Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was
ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I,
nurse, just for a good-night look?"

The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words.

"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of
consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live."

Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and
silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's
fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and
flushed--and thought within herself--it was a prayer and vow
unspoken--"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will _find_ something
that I can do for him!"

And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and
dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it
gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own
room.

Three nights--three days--more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night
after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the
doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the
resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a
mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the
critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would
flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life
or death.

Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while
the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the
other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the
cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl--her heart full, and
every nerve strained with emotion and suspense.

She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can
remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then
half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy,
feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern
of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect
nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter,
she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over
the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse