to take you to her room. You will
excuse me. I am momentarily expecting the Dean of Olivet, who is on a
visit to our city, and comes to-day to go through the hospital," said
the doctor, and he rang a bell.

"The dean here? Why, I thought we left him at West Point," said Mr.
Rockharrt.

"He came down by a late train last night, I understand. He makes but a
flying tour through the country, and cannot stay at any one place," the
venerable doctor explained. And then he touched the bell again.

The same man who had let our party in came to the door to answer the
call.

"Say to Sister Susannah that I would like to see her here," said the
doctor.

The man went out and was presently succeeded by a sweet faced, middle
aged woman in a black dress and a neat white cap.

"Here are the friends of the young lady who was brought in yesterday
morning. Will you please to take them to the bedside of your patient?"

The Protestant sister nodded pleasantly and led off the visitors.

As they went up the main staircase they heard the front door bell ring,
the door opened, and the Dean of Olivet, with some gentlemen in his
company, entered the hall.

Our party, after one glance, passed up the stairs, through an upper hall
and a corridor, and paused before a door which Sister Susannah opened.

They entered a small, clean, neat room, where, clothed in a white
wrapper, reclining in a white easy chair, beside a white curtained
window, and near a white bed, sat Rose Stillwater. She was looking, not
only pale, but sallow--as she had never looked before.

Rose Stillwater held out one hand to Mr. Rockharrt and one to Cora
Rothsay, in silence and with a faint smile.

The sister, seeing this recognition, set two cane bottomed chairs for
the visitors and then went out, leaving them alone with the patient.

"Good Lord, my dear, how did all this come about?" inquired old Aaron
Rockharrt, as he sank heavily upon one of the chairs, making it creak
under him.

"It was while we stood in the crowd. I was pressed almost out of breath.
Then the terrible pang shot through my head, and I ceased to struggle
and let everybody pass before me. I dropped down on one of the benches.
I had taken a morphia pellet before I left the hotel. I had the medicine
in my pocket. I took another then--"

"Very wrong, my dear. Very wrong, my dear, to meddle with that drug,
without the advice of a physician."

"Yes; I know it now, but I did not know it then. The se