Instead of being one of the most light-hearted girls, I heard that she used to sit day after day in her mother’s house and wring her hands and weep and that her mother’s heart was almost broken.  Friends feared that Lucy was losing her mind and might do some desperate deed, but she did not.  I left about that time to teach school in a distant village, and when I returned home I heard sad tidings of poor Lucy.  She was a mother, but not a wife.  Her brothers had grown angry with her for tarnishing their family name, of which they were so proud; her mother’s head was bowed with agony and shame.  The father of Lucy’s child had deserted her in her hour of trial and left her to bear her burden alone with the child like a millstone around her neck.  Poor Lucy; I seldom saw her after that, but one day I met her in the Park.  I went up to her and kissed her, she threw her arms around me and burst into a flood of tears.  I tried to restrain her from giving such vent to her feelings.  It was a lack of self-control which had placed her where she was.”

“‘Oh Anna!’ she said, ’it does me so much good to hold your hand in mine once more.  I reminds me of the days when we used to be together.  Oh, what would I give to recall those days.’”

“I said to her, Lucy, you can never recall the past, but you can try to redeem the future.  Try to be a faithful mother.  Men may build over the wreck and ruin of their young lives a better and brighter future, why should not a woman?  Let the dead past bury its dead and live in the future for the sake of your child.  She seemed so grateful for what I had said.  Others had treated her with scorn.  Her brother Thomas had refused to speak to her; her betrayer had forsaken her; all the joyousness had faded from her life and, poor girl, I was glad that I was able to say a helpful and hopeful word to her.  Mother, of course, would not let us associate with her, but she always treated her kindly when she came and did what she could to lighten the burden which was pressing her down to the grave.  But, poor child, she was never again the same light-hearted girl.  She grew pale and thin and in the hectic flush and faltering tread I read the death sign of early decay, and I felt that my misguided young friend was slowly dying of a broken heart.  Then there came a day when we were summoned to her dying bed.  Her brothers and sisters were present; all their resentment against her had vanished in the presence of death.  She was their dear sister about to leave them and they bent in tearful sorrow around her couch.  As one of her brothers, who was a good singer, entered the room, she asked him to sing ’Vital spark of heavenly flame.’  He attempted to sing, but there were tremors in his voice and he faltered in the midst of the hymn.  ’Won’t you sing for your dying sister.’”