Holy Spirit, teach me just what to say!” Her mother, listening with startled senses as the familiar voice fell on her ear, could but think that that petition was answered; and Ester felt it in her very soul, Dr. Douglass, her mother, Sadie, all of them were as nothing—­there was only this dying man and Christ, and she pleading that the passing soul might be met even now by the Angel of the covenant.  There were those in the room who never forgot that prayer of Ester’s.  Dr. Van Anden, entering hastily, paused midway in the room, taking in the scene in an instant of time, and then was on his knees, uniting his silent petitions with hers.  So fervent and persistent was the cry for help, that even the sobs of the stricken wife were hushed in awe, and only the watching doctor, with his finger on the pulse, knew when the last fluttering beat died out, and the death-angel pressed his triumphant seal on pallid lip and brow.

“Dr. Van Anden,” Ester said, as they stood together for a moment the next morning, waiting in the chamber of death for Mrs. Ried’s directions—.  “Was—­Did he,” with an inclination of her head toward the silent occupant of the couch, “Did he ever think he was a Christian?”

The doctor bent on her a grave, sad look, and slowly shook his head.

“Oh, Doctor! you can not think that he—­” and Ester stopped, her face blanching with the fearfulness of her thought.

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” This was the doctor’s solemn answer.  After a moment, he added:  “Perhaps that one eagerly-spoken word, ‘Pray,’ said as much to the ears of Him whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, as did that old-time petition—­’Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.’”

Ester never forgot that and the following day, while the corpse of one whom she had known so well lay in the house; and when she followed him to the quiet grave, and watched the red and yellow autumn leaves flutter down around his coffin—­dead leaves, dead flowers, dead hopes, death every-where—­not just a going up higher, as Mr. Foster’s death had been—­this was solemn and inexorable death.  More than ever she felt how impossible it was to call back the days that had slipped away while she slept, and do their neglected duties.  She had come for this, full of hope; and now one of those whom she had met many times each day for years, and never said Jesus to, was at this moment being lowered into his narrow house, and, though God had graciously given her an inch of time, and strength to use it, it was as nothing compared with those wasted years, and she could never know, at least never until the call came for her, whether or not at the eleventh hour this “poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,” and received him into Paradise.

Dr. Van Anden moved around to where she was standing, with tightly clasped hands and colorless lips.  He had been watching her, and this was what he said:  “Ester, shall you and I ever stand again beside a new-made grave, receiving one whom we have known ever so slightly, and have to settle with our consciences and our Savior, because we have not invited that one to come to Jesus?”