looked with
mute, wistful appeal into my face, as if to ask for their absent
mistress. As I went quietly up the stairs I met the doctor coming
down. He looked grave, and, in answer to my inquiries, said,--

'I hope she will pull through; the worst has passed, but she is very
weak. If you are going to be with her, do not let her talk too much.
She must not be excited; and see that she has nourishment at the times
I have ordered. I shall be in early to-morrow morning.'

A minute after and I stood by her bedside, but I was shocked to see how
her illness had pulled her down. She lay motionless, but not asleep,
and when I laid my hand softly upon hers she looked up.

'Do you know me?' she asked, with a faint smile. 'I feel a wreck, and
as helpless as a baby!'

'I wish we had known about it before,' I said, 'I would have come over
at once.'

'I was too ill to care,' she responded. 'I hate people fussing round.
I thought I should like to see you, and so sent John over.'

She closed her eyes, and I, quietly removing my hat and jacket, came
and took up my position at the bedside.

Susan and I had some anxious days after this, and, beyond saying a
verse or two from the Bible to her, I could do nothing but pray for
her. She seemed too weak to be able to hear or understand. But at
length she really began to mend, and then her recovery was rapid.

One afternoon, the first time I felt I could with safety let her talk a
little to me, she turned to me and said abruptly,--

'Hilda, I can't face death. I am not prepared for it.'

I did not answer for a minute, then I said,--

'God has been very good in saving you from that, hasn't He?'

'But I have been on the brink of it, child, and I can't forget it. It
has made me see things so differently--my wasted life, and my self-will
and self-pleasing, my rejection of so much Bible truth that was
distasteful to me. I have thought and thought over these things till I
wonder I did not go crazy. It was that that made me send for you. I
felt you were the only one that could help me.'

'I am afraid I have not been able to do much,' I responded. 'You have
been too ill to talk to, but I have been praying for you.'

'You said one verse to me soon after you came that has been ringing in
my head ever since. Wasn't it something like this, "There is one
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, in whom we have
redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of si