restoration spread through the building. When
Phillida got back from the Diet Kitchen with some savory food, the
doorway was blocked; but the people stood out of her way with as much
awe as they would had she worn an aureole, and she passed in and put the
food before Wilhelmina, who ate with a relish she hardly remembered to
have known before. The spectators dropped back into the passageway, and
Phillida gently closed the door.

"Now, Wilhelmina, lie down and rest. To-morrow you will walk a little.
Keep on believing with all your heart."

Having seen the patient, who was fatigued with unwonted exertion,
sleeping quietly, Phillida returned home. She said nothing of her
experiences of the day, but Millard, who called in the evening, found
her more abstracted and less satisfactory than ever. For her mind
continually reverted to her patient.

XVIII.

FAITH-DOCTOR AND LOVER.

The next day, though a great snow-storm had burst upon the city before
noon, Phillida made haste after luncheon to work her way first to the
Diet Kitchen and then to the Schulenberg tenement. When she got within
the shelter of the doorway of the tenement house she was well-nigh
exhausted, and it was half a minute before she could begin the arduous
climbing of the stairs.

"I thought you would not come," said Wilhelmina with something like a
cry of joy. "I have found it hard to keep on believing, but still I have
believed and prayed. I was afeard if till to-morrow you waited the black
thoughts would come back again. Do you think I can sit up wunst more
already?"

"If you have faith; if you believe."

Under less excitement than that of the day before, Mina found it hard to
get up; but at length she succeeded. Then she ate the appetizing food
that Phillida set before her. Meantime the mother, deeply affected, took
her market-basket and went out, lest somehow her presence should be a
drawback to her daughter's recovery.

While the feeble Wilhelmina was eating, Phillida drew the only fairly
comfortable chair in the room near to the stove, and, taking from a bed
some covering, she spread it over the back and seat of the chair. Then,
when the meal was completed, she read from the Acts of the Apostles of
the man healed at the gate of the temple by Simon Peter. With the book
open in her hand, as she sat, she offered a brief fervent prayer.

"Now, Wilhelmina, doubt nothing," she said. "In the name of Jesus of
Nazareth, rise up and walk!"

T