stand looking at the sick girl with eyes which ought to have brought her back to health.  Uncle Josh was in and out fifty times a day, and things outside were allowed to manage themselves; all interest centred in the little attic chamber and its suffering occupant.  She lay in a kind of stupor most part of the day, only moaning at times with the pain Dr. Gair was powerless to relieve.  She grew perceptibly weaker, and they feared to leave her a moment, lest she should slip away while they were gone.  So the days went by till Sunday came round again.  Dr. Gair came early that morning, and looked, if possible, graver than usual.

“If she lives till evening,” he said to the anxious watchers, “she will recover, but I cannot give you much hope.  Administer this medicine every two hours; it is all I can do.  I will be back before night.”

In after years Aunt Hepsy was wont to say that Sunday was the longest day she had ever spent in her life.  I think others felt so too.  Slowly the hours went round.  Even into the darkened room the spring sunshine would peep, and the twittering of the birds in the orchard broke the oppressive stillness.  At four o’clock the doctor came again.  Save for the almost imperceptible breathing, Lucy lay so pale and still that they almost thought her dead.  At sunset she moved uneasily, and with a great sigh lifted her heavy lids and looked round the room.  A sob burst from Aunt Hepsy’s lips, and Carrie Goldthwaite’s tears fell fast, for Dr. Gair’s face said she was saved.  Her lips moved, and he bent down to catch the faintly murmured words,—­

“Have I been sick a long time?  I am going to get well now.”

The doctor nodded and smiled.  “God has been very good to you—­to us all—­my child,” he said.  “He has heard the prayers of those who love you.”

Carrie came to the bedside then, and bending over her, kissed her once with streaming eyes.  Aunt Hepsy moved to the window and drew up the blind, and the red glow of the setting sun crept into the room, and lay bright and beautiful on Lucy’s face.

“I am glad to see the sun again,” said Lucy wearily.  “I seem to have been sick so long.  May I go to sleep now, Dr. Gair?”

“Yes; and sleep a week if you like,” he said cheerily.—­“Rest and care now, Miss Strong, is all she needs to bring her round.”

Aunt Hepsy made no reply whatever.  She stood still in the window, her face softened into a strange, thankful tenderness, and her heart lifting itself up in gratitude to God, and in many an earnest resolution for the future.  She followed Dr. Gair downstairs, as she had done that day a week before, and as he passed out caught his hand in a grip of iron.  “I’m a woman of few words, Dr. Gair,” she said abruptly, “but I won’t forget what you’ve done for me an’ mine.”

“God first, Miss Strong,” said the doctor gravely; and then he added with an odd little smile, “Lucy’s lines will be in pleasant places now, I fancy?”