sat down to listen, he did it ungraciously, and his voice
was irritable as he said:

"I do not understand your little game, Cora; and I wish you would
explain it as quickly as possible."

"Do you remember Mary Brady, one of the ballet girls?"

"Yes."

"She is dead. She sent for me one night in July. She was dying without
a friend, and without a cent. I did what I could. I did what there was
no one else to do, I tried to pray with her, and to tell her about a
pitiful God and Christ."

"You!"

"Me. For I am the child of parents who loved God, and I have two
little sisters whom I have sinned for, lest they should become
sinners. I know I ought to have trusted God, but I thought He was
never coming to help me--and so I took the devil's help. No one knows
what the devil's wages are until they have earned them. Mary has taken
his last coin, which is--death."

"Poor little girl! She was a merry sprite."

"Mirth was part of her bargain. She was dying while she was
laughing"--and the face of the speaker was so instinct with grief that
Harry suddenly found that all his suspicions were vanishing, and an
irrepressible interest was taking their place.

"Well, Cora?"

"My name is Hannah--Hannah Young. My father and mother gave me that
name, in the old meeting-house at Newburyport. It was the name
registered in God's Book, and I would not see it on a play-bill; so I
called myself--the other one. As I was telling you, I tried to talk to
poor Mary, as I knew my mother would have talked to me. Alas! alas! it
was too late!"

Harry looked up startled and uneasy.

"She had suffered so long and so cruelly, without anything to help or
to relieve her pain. I brought her cold water and fruits and a doctor,
and I told her that Christ saw all her trouble and pitied her, but she
only said, 'It is not true! If He loved me He would have sent me
help, when help might have saved me.' Then I got the Gospel, and I
read it to her, and she cried wearily, 'I have heard it all before! I
know He was loving and good, but that is all so long ago!' I said,
'Mary, if you could only pray!' and she asked angrily, 'To whom? To
the fine ladies on Broadway, or to the men who preach now and then in
the mostly closed churches?' I told her, 'Christ waits in this very
room,' and she began to wail and cry out, 'It is not true! It is not
true! Christ would have touched and healed me long ago!' Yes, in her
very last moments she whispered, 'He does not know