quoted Marjorie.  “So it did all come to nothing.”

“As air-castles almost always do.  But we’ll hope she found something better.”

“Do people?” questioned Marjorie.

“Hasn’t God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or build castles about?”

“I hope so,” said Marjorie; “but Hollis Rheid’s mother told mother yesterday that her life was one long disappointment.”

“What did your mother say?”

“She said ‘Oh, Mrs. Rheid, it won’t be if you get to Heaven, at last.’”

“I think not.”

“But she doesn’t expect to go to Heaven, she says.  Mother says she’s almost in ‘despair’ and she pities her so!”

“Poor woman!  I don’t see how she can live through despair.  The old proverb ‘If it were not for hope, the heart would break,’ is most certainly true.”

“Why didn’t you come before?” asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that still played with the fan.

“Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand.  I could not come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to Portland on some business.  And I did not feel strong enough to walk until this morning.”

“How good you are to walk!”

“As good as you are to walk to see me.”

“Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you questions so.”

“I believe the latter,” said Miss Prudence smiling.

“Well, I’m happy now,” Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble still upon her.  “Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told you about the pitcher nor made amends for it.”

“I don’t believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make ready and not leave many things undone—­many tangled threads and rough edges to be taken care of.  We are very happy if we have no sin to confess, no wrong to make right.”

“I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me,” said Marjorie, simply; “but I wanted to tell you myself.  Mother wants to go home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says.  I shouldn’t wonder if she prays about it—­she prays about everything.  Do people have that kind of a prayer answered?”

“I have known more than one instance—­and I read about a gentleman who had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while sitting on his own piazza.”

“Oh!” said Marjorie.

“That was all he could have wished.  And the mother of my pastor at home, who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she had always wished to be summoned suddenly.”

“When she was speaking to him, too,” murmured Marjorie.  “I like old people, don’t you?  Hollis’ grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her and take up her stitches when she drops them in her knitting work and read the Bible to her.  She won’t listen to anything but the Bible; she says she’s too old to hear other books read.”