all her strength in weeping and feeling; the
oil of life wastes quickly in that way."

"O minister, I am so sorry that I left her! It was selfish and cruel.
I wish now that I could cover her hands with kisses, and ask her
pardon on my knees; but I find nothing but a grave."

"Ah, David, it is death that forces us to see the selfishness that
comes into our best affections. Self permitted you to give all you
had to Nanna, but forbade you to give yourself. There was self even
in your self-surrender to God. If you could have seen that long, long
disappointed look in Nanna's eyes, and the pale lips that asked so
little from you--"

"O minister, spare me! She asked only, 'Stay near me, David';
and I might have stayed and comforted her to the end. Oh, for one
hour--one hour only! But neither to-day nor to-morrow, nor through
all eternity, shall I have the opportunity to love and soothe
which I threw away because it hurt me and made my heart ache."
And David bowed his head in his hands and wept bitterly.

Alas! love, irreparably wronged, possesses these eternal memories;
and the soul, forced to weep for opportunities gone forever, has
these inconsolable refinements of tenderness. "One hour--one hour
only!" was the cry of David's soul. And the answer was, "No, never!
She has carried away her sorrow. You may, indeed, meet her where
all tears are dried and forgotten; but while she did weep you were
not there; you had left her alone, and your hour to comfort her has
gone forever."

After a short silence the minister went to his desk, and brought
from it David's purse, and he laid it, with the will that had been
written, before him. "It is useless now," he said. "Nanna has need
of nothing you can give her."

"Did it do any good, minister?"

"Yes, a great deal. When Nanna was no longer able to come to the
kirk, I went to see her. She was miserably sick and poor, and it
made my heart ache to watch her thin, trembling fingers trying to
knit. I took her work gently out of her hands, and said, 'You are
not able to hold the needles, Nanna, and you have no need to try to
do so. There is provision made for all your wants.' And she flared
up like whin-bushes set on fire, and said she had asked neither kirk
nor town for help, and that she trusted in God to deliver her from
this life before she had to starve or take a beggar's portion."

"O minister, if God had not comforted me concerning her, you would
break my heart. What did you