qually helpless and
embarrassed. How to be of any use in that dreadful agony of nature was
denied to both. They stood looking on, awed and self-reproaching. Such
scenes have doubtless happened in sick-rooms before now.

When the fit was over, a hasty step came up the stair, and Mr Wentworth
entered the room. He explained in a whisper that he had not been at home
when the messenger came, but had followed whenever he heard of the
message. Seeing the Rector, he hesitated, and drew back with some
surprise, and, even (for he was far from perfect) in that chamber, a
little flush of offence. The Rector rose abruptly, waving his hand,
and went to join Miss Wodehouse in her corner. There the two elderly
spectators looked on silent at ministrations of which both were
incapable; one watching with wondering yet affectionate envy how Lucy
laid down the weakened but relieved patient upon her pillows; and one
beholding with a surprise he could not conceal, how a young man, not
half his own age, went softly, with all the confidence yet awe of
nature, into those mysteries which he dared not touch upon. The two
young creatures by the deathbed acknowledged that their patient was
dying; the woman stood by her watchful and affectionate--the man held up
before her that cross, not of wood or metal, but of truth and everlasting
verity, which is the only hope of man. The spectators looked on, and did
not interrupt--looked on, awed and wondering--unaware of how it was, but
watching, as if it were a miracle wrought before their eyes. Perhaps all
the years of his life had not taught the Rector so much as did that
half-hour in an unknown poor bed-chamber, where, honest and humble,
he stood aside, and, kneeling down, responded to his young brother's
prayer. His young brother--young enough to have been his son--not half
nor a quarter part so learned as he; but a world further on in that
profession which they shared--the art of winning souls.

When those prayers were over, the Rector, without a word to anybody,
stole quietly away. When he got into the street, however, he found
himself closely followed by Miss Wodehouse, of whom he was not at this
moment afraid. That good creature was crying softly under her veil. She
was eager to make up to him, to open out her full heart; and indeed
the Rector, like herself, in that wonderful sensation of surprised and
unenvying discomfiture, was glad at that moment of sympathy too.

"Oh, Mr Proctor, isn't it wonde