. You will do what you can to help
in this sad time of trouble, and not add to my distress by giving way
like this. You are over-tired, I think, and had better take a book, and
stay here for the present, and lie down on the sofa and rest.
Afterwards, if you like, you can go in the garden."

I preferred remaining in the school-room; I could see the hall-door, and
up the first flight of stairs, and could hear the opening and shutting
of doors up-stairs, and occasional remarks from passers through the
hall, so that I felt less lonely than I knew I should feel in the
garden. Frisk came and sat with his fore-paws on my lap--he seemed aware
that something had gone wrong--and wagged his tail, not merrily, but
slowly and mournfully, as if to express, after his fashion, how truly he
sympathized in our distress.

At last, once again there was the sound of wheels; it was the dog-cart
this time, and Frisk threw back his head, pricked up his ears, and,
with a quick bark, darted off to sanction the arrival of the doctor with
his presence.

My father, too, was at the hall-door in an instant.

"I am thankful to see you," he said, as the doctor sprung from the
dog-cart; "you have heard the circumstances?"

"I have," answered Dr. Wilson, following my father quickly up-stairs.
"Is he still unconscious?"

The answer was lost to me; but all at once, as I thought of Dr. Wilson,
and how much depended upon his visit, the recollection of my mother's
words came back to me, "We must pray God, Willie, if it be His will
Aleck may get better;" and with a sudden impulse I jumped up, shut the
door, and kneeling down, with my head pressed upon my hands, I prayed
with a sort of intensity I had never known before: "O Lord, make Aleck
well, do make Aleck well, don't let him die,"--repeating the words over
and over again, and getting up with some dim sense of comfort in my
mind, as I thought that God had the power as much now as when in our
human nature He walked upon this world, to heal all that were ill; and
had He not said, "Ask, and you shall receive?"

Why was it that the verse which I had repeated that morning to my
mother, after breakfast, came back so often to my mind? "_If I regard
iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me._" Generally my mother
explained my daily text, but this morning, owing to the anxiety about
Aleck's disappearance, there had not been the usual time, and she had
simply heard the verse, and sent me off, as before-