ed it, as mony anither has afore me. Wheesht, Teen; dinna greet.'

The sobs of the little seamstress shook the narrow bed, and appeared to
distress Liz inexpressibly. Presently she glanced again at the face of
Gladys, and was struck by its altered look. It was no longer sympathetic
nor sweet in its expression, but very pale and hard and set, as if the
iron had entered into the soul within.

'Is this quite true?' she asked, and her very voice had a hard, cold
ring.

'When ye're deein', ye dinna perjure yersel',' replied Liz, with a faint
return of the old caustic speech. 'If ye dinna believe me, ask him. Is
Wat away? Teen, ye micht gang an' bring him back.'

The little seamstress rose obediently, and when they were alone behind
the screens, Liz lifted her feeble hand again and touched the arm of
Gladys.

'Oh, dinna tak' him! He's a bad man--bad, selfish, cruel; dinna tak'
him, or ye'll rue'd but yince. I dinna want to excuse mysel'. Maybe I
wasna guid, but afore God I lo'ed him, an' I believed I wad be his wife.
Eh, d'ye think that'll be onything against me in the ither world? Eh,
wummin, I'm feared! If only I had anither chance!'

That pitiful speech, and the unspeakable pathos on the face of Liz,
lifted Gladys above the supreme bitterness of that moment.

'Oh, do not be afraid,' she cried, folding her gentle hands, whose very
touch seemed to carry hope and healing. 'Jesus is so very tender with
us; He will never send the erring away. Let us ask Him to be with you
now, to give you of His own comfort and strength and hope.'

She knelt down by the bed, unconscious of any listener save the dying
girl, and there prayed the most earnest and heartfelt prayer which had
ever passed her lips. While she was speaking, the other two had returned
to the bed-side, and stood with bowed heads, listening with a deep and
solemn awe to the words which seemed to bring heaven so very near to
that little spot of earth. The dying girl's strength was evidently fast
ebbing; the brilliance died out of her eyes, and the film of death took
its place. She smiled faintly upon them all with a glance of sad
recognition, but her last look, her last word, was for Gladys, and so
she passed within the portals of the unseen without a struggle, nay,
even with an expression of deep peace upon her worn face.

A wasted life? Yes; and a death which might have wrung tears of pity
from a heart of stone.

But the Pharisee, who wraps the robe of his resp