ann said
this morning, when his wife proposed sending for the priest, 'No,
Gretchen, no. I want no priest; but oh, I wish little Frida were here to
read to me from her brown book about Jesus Christ our great High Priest,
who takes away our sins, and is always praying for us.'"

"Oh, I remember," interrupted Frida. "I read to him once about Jesus
ever living 'to make intercession for us.' Yes, Wilhelm, I'll come with
you. I know Miss Drechsler will say I should go, for she often tells me
I really belong to the kind people in the Forest." And so saying, she
ran off to tell her story to her friend.

Miss Drechsler at once assented to her return to the Forest to give what
help she could to the people there, adding that she herself would come
up soon to visit them, and bring them any comforts necessary for them
such as could not be easily got by them. Ere they parted she and Frida
knelt together in prayer, and Miss Drechsler asked that God would use
the child as His messenger to the poor, sorrowing, suffering ones in the
Forest; after which she took Frida's Bible and put marks in at the
different passages which she thought would be suitable to the different
cases of the people that Wilhelm had spoken of.

It was late in the afternoon ere Wilhelm and Frida reached the hut of
Johann Schmidt, where he left the child for a while, whilst he went on
to the Volkmans to tell them of Frida's return, and that she hoped to
see them the next day. Gretchen met the girl with a cry of delight.

"_Ach!_ there she comes, our own little Fraeulein. What a pleasure it is
to see thee again, our woodland pet! And see, here is my Johann laid up
in bed, nearly killed by the falling of a tree."

The sick man raised himself as he heard the child's voice saying as she
entered, in reply to Gretchen's words, "Oh, I am sorry, so sorry! Why
did you not tell me sooner?" And in another moment she was sitting
beside Johann, speaking kind, comforting words to him. He stroked her
hair fondly, and answered her questions as well as he could; but there
was a far-away look in his eyes as if his thoughts were in some region
distant from the one he was living in now. After a few minutes he asked
eagerly,--

"Have you the little brown book with you now?"

"Yes, I have," was the reply. "Shall I read to you now, Johann? for
Wilhelm is to come for me soon."

"Yes, read, read," he said; "for I am weary, so weary."

Frida turned quickly to the eleventh chapter o