ook. "We are
in the Lord's hands. He taketh the young in their might, and He
healeth them that are nigh unto death. We can only wait His will."

Agatha was the product of a different age and a different system of
thought. But she was still young, and the pressure of the hour revived
in her some ghost of her Puritan ancestral faith, longing to become a
reality in her heart again, if only for this dire emergency. She
turned, eager but painfully embarrassed, to Mrs. Stoddard, detaining
her by a touch on her arm.

"But you said, Mrs. Stoddard," she implored, "that the prayer of faith
shall heal the sick. And I have been praying, too; I have tried to
summon my faith. Do you believe that it counts--for good?"

Mrs. Stoddard's rapt gaze blessed Agatha. Her faith and courage were
of the type that rise according to need. She drew nearer to her
sanctuary, to the fountain of her faith, as her earthly peril waxed.
Her voice rang with confidence as she almost chanted: "No striving
toward God is ever lost, dear child. He is with us in our sorrow, even
as in our joy." Her strong hand closed over Agatha's for a moment, and
then her steady, slow steps sounded on the stairs.

Agatha went into the parlor, whose windows opened upon the piazza, and
from there wandered down the low steps to the lawn. It was growing
dusk, a still, comfortable evening. Over the lawn lay the
indescribable freshness of a region surrounded by many trees and acres
of grass. Presently the old hound, Danny, came slowly from his kennel
in the back yard, and paced the grass beside Agatha, looking up often
with melancholy eyes into her face. Here was a living relic of her
mother's dead friend, carrying in his countenance his sorrow for his
departed master. Agatha longed to comfort him a little, convey to him
the thought that she would love him and try to understand his nature,
now that his rightful master was gone. She talked softly to him,
calling him to her but not touching him. Back and forth they paced,
the old dog following closer and closer to Agatha's heels.

Back of the house was a path leading diagonally across to the wall
which separated Parson Thayer's place from the meeting-house. The dog
seemed intent on following this path. Agatha humored him, climbed the
low stile and entered the churchyard. As the hound leaped the stile
after her, he wagged his tail and appeared almost happy. Agatha
remembered that Sallie had told her, on the