a better place. I don't
think anybody else has a place that seems so good to me; for mother,
Jesus is always there."

"I expect there'll be nothing else but heaven good enough for you after
it!" said Mrs. Mathieson, with a sort of half sob. "I see you wasting
away before my very eyes."

"Mother," said Nettie, cheerfully, "how can you talk so? I feel
well--except now and then."

"If your father could only be made to see it!--but he can't see
anything, nor hear anything. There's that house-raising to-morrow,
Nettie--it's been on my mind this fortnight past, and it kills me."

"Why, mother?"

"I know how it will be," said Mrs. Mathieson; "they'll have a grand
set-to after they get it up; and your father'll be in the first of it;
and I somehow feel as if it would be the finishing of him. I wish
almost he'd get sick--or anything, to keep him away. They make such a
time after a house-raising."

"O mother, don't wish that," said Nettie; but she began to think how it
would be possible to withdraw her father from the frolic with which the
day's business would be ended. Mr. Mathieson was a carpenter, and a fine
workman; and always had plenty of work and was much looked up to among
his fellows.

Nettie began to think whether _she_ could make any effort to keep her
father from the dangers into which he was so fond of plunging; hitherto
she had done nothing but pray for him; could she do anything more, with
any chance of good coming of it? She thought and thought; and resolved
that she must try. It did not look hopeful; there was little she could
urge to lure Mr. Mathieson from his drinking companions; nothing, except
her own timid affection, and the one other thing it was possible to
offer him,--a good supper. How to get that was not so easy; but she
consulted with her mother.

Mrs. Mathieson said she used in her younger days to know how to make
waffles,[3] and Mr. Mathieson used to think they were the best things
that ever were made; now if Mrs. Moss, a neighbour, would lend her
waffle-iron, and she could get a few eggs,--she believed she could
manage it still. "But we haven't the eggs, child," she said; "and I
don't believe any power under heaven can get him to come away from that
raising frolic."

[3] _Waffles_, a species of sweet-cake used on such festivals in
America.

Nor did Nettie. It was to no power _under_ heaven that she trusted. But
she must use her means. She easily got the iron from Mrs. Moss. Then she