“‘Yes.’

“’Then you must know why I am happy, and why I may be better off than you are.  It will be very hard for father and mother—­there will be more pain for them here in consequence—­but soon it will all end forever; in a little while we shall be together again.  So you know nearly all about poor little me,’ she said, with another of her smiles, which were the sweetest, yet most unearthly things I ever saw.  ’And now tell me about yourself.  I’m not able to talk much more for the present.  I’d like to know something about the friend who helped me through the last few steps of my journey.  I can think about you in heaven, you know,’ she said, with the sweetest little laugh.  ’Don’t look so sad, Madge.  They’ll tell you I’m gone soon.  “Gone where?” ask yourself, and never grieve a moment.’

“Oh, Graydon, she made it all seem so real, talking there alone in the night!  And it is just as she says or it isn’t anything.  When you said, ‘Such a God,’ you had in mind a theological phantom, and I don’t wonder you felt as you did; but this girl believes in a God who ’so loved the world’—­who so loved her—­and I do also.  Her pain, her thwarted young life, I don’t understand any more than I do other phases of evil, but I can give my allegiance to One who came to take away the evil of the world.  That’s about all the religion I have, and you mustn’t ever say a word against it.

“Well, there is but little more to tell.  Tilly spoke in quiet, broken sentences as her cough permitted, and I told her a little about myself and sang to her some hymns that mother sang to me when I was a child.  With the dawn her mother came in, and was frightened at having slept so long, but Tilly laughed and said it was just splendid.

“She was evidently a very intelligent girl, and must have been a pretty one, too.  She certainly has read a great deal, and has taught in public schools.  There didn’t seem to be a trace of morbidness in her mind or feeling.  She was simply trying to make the best of everything, and her best certainly is the best.  She has helped and comforted me more than I could her.”

“Comforted you, Madge?”

“Oh, well,” was the somewhat confused reply.  “I’ve had trouble, and shall have again.  Who is without it long in this world?”

“It’s almost hard to see how serious trouble can reach you hereafter, you are so strong, so fortified.  No, Madge; I’ll never say a word against your faith or that of your new friend.  Would to Heaven I had it myself!  I wouldn’t have missed this talk with you for the world, and you can’t know how I appreciate the friendship which has led you to speak to me frankly of what is so sacred.  All the whirl and pressure of coming life and business shall never blot from my memory the words you have spoken this morning or the scenes you have made so real.”