ll after
school, and when she went into the school-room she found Sister Benigna
sitting at her desk with _The Messiah_ open. But she was gone. We had in
Doctor Hummel, and he says it was the heart. He has thought, he says,
for a year or so, that there must be some feeble action of the valves.
She went to him a twelvemonth since about it, and he told her his
opinion; but he told her she might live fifty years yet, though she
_might_ go any day. She never mentioned it to us. But Hummel says when
he told her she said it was good news. Yet, sir, you never saw a happier
creature. You saw her last night and this morning. Well, sir, that's a
fair sample--busy all the time, and happy as happy."

"But are you sure that nothing could be done for her?" exclaimed
Leonhard, to whom the quiet and calm into which Loretz had talked
himself was anything but composing.

"Perfectly sure. If you should look at her once you would see. But I
must go back to my women. Will you make yourself at home within? We
shall all be back in an hour or so."

Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night
there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of
that, sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring
Sister Benigna here. If she had--had died here, we should have carried
her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from
the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And--I have been
thinking--to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival
with her funeral."

"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should
never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't
believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I
gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four
hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the
festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener
when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a
bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter!
wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the
community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament,
or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise
couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say!
Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go
in an