ached for him. She had never seen such a change in a
few hours as had passed over him. He seemed to have grown ten years older
in that one night--he was so pale and haggard--his eyes so sunken in his
head, and there were deep, hard lines of suffering on his brow and around
his mouth.

His meal was soon concluded.

"Adelaide, how is she?" he asked in a voice which he vainly endeavored to
make calm and steady.

"Much the same; there seems to be very little change," replied his
sister, wiping away her tears. Then drawing Elsie's little Bible from her
pocket, she put it into his hand, saying, "I thought it might help to
comfort you, my poor brother;" and with a fresh burst of tears she
hastily left the room and hurried to her own, to spend a few moments in
pleading for him that this heavy affliction might be made the means of
leading him to Christ.

And he--ah! he could not at first trust himself even to look at the
little volume that had been so constantly in his darling's hands, that
it seemed almost a part of herself.

He held it in a close, loving grasp, while his averted eyes were dim with
unshed tears; but at length, passing his hand over them to clear away the
blinding mist, he opened the little book and turned over its pages with
trembling fingers, and a heart swelling with emotion.

There were many texts marked with her pencil, and many pages blistered
with her tears. Oh, what a pang that sight sent to her father's heart! In
some parts these evidences of her frequent and sorrowful perusal were
more numerous than in others. Many of the Psalms, the Lamentations of
Jeremiah, and the books of Job and Isaiah, in the Old Testament, and St.
John's gospel, and the latter part of Hebrews, in the New.

Hour after hour he sat there reading that little book; at first
interested in it only because of its association with her--his loved one;
but at length beginning to feel the importance of its teachings and their
adaptedness to his needs. As he read, his convictions deepened the
inspired declaration that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord,"
and the solemn warning, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if
they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not
we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven," filled
him with fear of the wrath to come; for well he remembered how all his
life he had turned away from the Saviour of sinners, despising that blood
of sprinklin