n't eat the jelly, but it was good of them to send
it. She can't eat anything. She's worse, George. I don't know how I am
going to stand it."

George was in no mood for condolence. Yet he was not quite heartless.
"Look here," he said, "you mustn't give up."

"George, if she dies," Oscar said, wildly, "what do you think will happen
to me? I never planned for this. I planned for a good time. I thought
maybe that when we were old--one of us might go. But it wouldn't be fair
to take her now--and leave me."

"I have given her--everything----" he went on. "I--I think I've been a
good husband. I have always loved her a lot, George, you know that."

He was a plain little man, but at this moment he gained something of
dignity. And there was this to say for him, that what he felt for Flora
was a deeper emotion than George had ever known.

"The doctor says the crisis comes to-night. I am not going to bed. I
couldn't sleep. George--I've been wondering if I oughtn't to call
in--some kind of clergyman--to see her."

"People don't, nowadays, do they?" George asked rather uncomfortably.

"Well, I don't see why they shouldn't. There ought to be somebody to
pray for Flora."

There was, it developed upon inquiry, a little old rector who lived not
far away. George went for him in his big car.

The little man, praying beside Flora's gorgeous bed, felt that this was
the hundredth sheep who had wandered and was found. The other ninety and
nine were safely in the fold. He had looked after the spiritual
condition of the county for fifty years. There had been much to
discourage him, but in the main if they strayed they came back.

He prayed with fervor, the fine old prayers of his church.

"Look down from heaven, we humbly beseech thee, with the eyes of mercy
upon this child now lying upon the bed of sickness: Visit her, O Lord,
with thy salvation; deliver her in thy good appointed time from bodily
pain, and save her soul for thy mercies' sake; that, if it shall be thy
pleasure to prolong her days here on earth, she may live for thee, and be
an instrument of thy glory, by serving thee faithfully, and doing good in
her generation; or else receive her into those heavenly habitations,
where the souls of those who sleep in the Lord Jesus enjoy perpetual rest
and felicity."

Flora, lying inert and bloodless, opened her eyes. "Say it again," she
whispered. "Say it again."

II

Randy rode straight from Hamilton H