ur angels for my head,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Bless the bed that I lie on!

Granny used to say that for me at night; only she had said "four
hangels for my 'ead," at which I used to giggle into my pillows. I
hadn't felt so close to Granny since I was little Sophy, in the
rooms over our shop in Boston. She was somewhere around me; if I
went to sleep now, she'd be there when I woke up in the morning. But
the sound that was a calling voice wouldn't let me go to sleep.
Slowly, heavily, I managed to get my eyes open again.

"Look at me!" said the voice imperiously. Two large dark eyes caught
my wavering glance and held it, as in a vise. "Sophy! Sophy! _I need
you._"

Said another voice, then, brokenly: "For mercy's sake, Jelnik, let
her go in peace!"

"No, she sha'n't die. I won't have it!--Sophy, come back! It is I
who call you, Sophy. Come back!"

My stiff lips moved. "Must go--sleep," I tried to say.

"No, I forbid you to go to sleep, Sophy!" His dark eyes, full of
life and compelling power, held my tired and dimmed ones, his firm,
warm hands held my cold and inert fingers. "My love, my dear love,
stay. You have got to stay, Sophy. Don't you understand? You can't
go, Sophy!"

My dulled brain stumblingly laid hold upon a thought: _Nicholas
Jelnik was calling me. He was calling me because he loved me._ One
simply can't go down into sleep and darkness, when a miracle like
that is climbing like the morning-star into one's skies.

"Stay!" he said, his lips against my ear. "Sophy! My love, my dear
love, stay!"

But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away.
There must have been that in my straining glance that made him
aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms,
and kissed me on the mouth.

My heart quite stopped beating, as a spent runner pauses, that he
may gather new strength to go on. With a sigh I fell back; but not
into the water and the dark.

"By God, you've pulled her through, Jelnik!" cried the voice of
Richard Geddes.

Came vague sounds, stirs, movements, hands upon me. Then oblivion
again.

I woke up one pleasant forenoon to find a brisk and capable young
woman in white sitting in my room, her head bent over the piece of
linen she was hemming. She was a healthy, handsome young woman, with
hard, firm cheeks, hard, firm lips, and professional eyes and
glasses. She glanced up and met my wan stare.

"What are you doing here, if