come and smooth me off to sleep.
I'm that tired lying here, I don't know what to do. That new doctor's no
more good than his powders are. I don't see what old Dr Ross had to die
for, just before I was goin' ter need him.' And the sick woman groaned.

Pauline laid Polly in her cot with a smile. This grudging praise was
very sweet to her. To make darkness light, that was Christ's mission,
and hers. She was putting her whole soul in the effort.

'What makes P'liney so different?' queried Leander of Stephen and John,
as they rested from their daily task of cutting wood. 'She used ter be
as mad as hops if yer mussed up yer clothes, an' now she only laughs an'
sez, "Never mind, if it's a stain that soap will conquer."'

'An' she's always singin' too,' said John thoughtfully; 'if mother
didn't scold so it would be real pleasant.'

'I'd like to know why it is, though,' repeated Leander thoughtfully.

'Because she belongs to the King,' said the clear, sweet voice of his
step-sister from the doorway, 'and she wants you all to belong to Him
too.'

When she went back into the house, she found Lemuel brandishing a
broomstick over the frightened Polly.

'Why, Lemuel, what are you doing?'

'I've casted the devils out of her,' exclaimed that youth triumphantly,
'an' they've gone inter the pig pen, whole leguns of 'em, an' they're
kickin' orful!'

_Chapter IX_

A LOST LETTER

Seven years had gone by, and every day of each successive month had been
full to overflowing of hard work for Pauline.

'Dear Tryphosa,' she whispered to herself with a smile, 'you little
thought, when you gave me that new beatitude, what constant friends the
grey angel of Drudgery and I were to be.'

She climbed slowly up the narrow stairs to her room, and shaded the lamp
that it might not disturb Polly's troubled sleep,--poor Polly, who would
be an invalid for life. Then she sat down with a sigh of relief to read
Belle's last letter. It had been a hard day, her step-mother had been
more than usually restless, and the farm-work had been very heavy, for
Martha Spriggs was home on a visit; every nerve in her body seemed to
quiver with the strain.

'My dearest Paul,' Belle wrote, 'I can hardly see for crying, but I
promised her that you should know at once.

'Tryphosa went away from us to "the other shore" last night. We were all
there--her "inner circle" as she used to call us--all except you, and
she seemed to miss you so. I never knew h