to see a smiling face!
It's just a real help and lift on the way."

"It's a help to see _you_. I always feel better for it," returned Peggy
earnestly. There was a moment's silence, then suddenly she clasped her
hands round the other's arm with an eager question. "Tell me, what does
it feel like to be face to face with death as you are now? To live with
the expectation of it with you day and night? To know for a certainty
that it is near? Tell me, how does it feel?"

Mrs Asplin stood still in the middle of the path and drew a long
fluttering breath. Her eyes grew rapt, and she clasped the girl's hand
in an ecstasy of emotion.

"Peggy, it's--_wonderful_!" she sighed. "It is like being suddenly
lifted on to a plateau and seeing life above the clouds! Everything is
different, everything is altered! Things that were forgotten before
seem now to fill in the whole view; things that were large and looming,
seem, oh, so small, so mean and trifling! I look back, and can hardly
understand how I worried myself about useless trifles--little
shabbinesses about the house, upset of arrangements, clothes and food
and holiday-making. When you once realise the uncertainty of life, they
seem of such unutterable unimportance. And it helps one to be gentle,
too, because if by chance it should happen to be the last day one had to
live, how sad it would be to speak hasty words, or to leave some one
sorrowing because of neglect or unkindness! It makes one long to do
kind things and say cheering words, and oh, so terrified of losing an
opportunity which may never come again! The doctor's verdict was a
great shock to me at first, but I am gradually coming to look upon it as
one of the greatest of blessings, for it's a hasty, impetuous creature
I've been all my days, and this quiet waiting time is going to teach me
many lessons. I ought to be grateful and happy that it has been granted
me."

Peggy bit her lips and looked at the ground. She could not trust
herself to speak, but in her heart she was saying:

"And after all, she may live longer than I! Every life is uncertain.
_I_ ought to feel like that too. I ought to climb up to that high
ground above the clouds. It's because she is a Christian that she feels
like that. I used always to think that very good people must be dull
and gloomy, but Mrs Asplin is the happiest creature I know, and so full
of fun... We used to go to her for help in all our school-day pranks,
and