He had not much to ask for himself.  He simply craved that Presence, and it had never seemed so close.  As he unlocked his door and hurried down the hall to the dining-room he marveled that a thing so sweet had been so long neglected from his life.  Prayer!  How he had sneered at it!  Yet it was a reasonable thing, after all, now that he had come believing.

Nurse Wright was on hand promptly at the place appointed.  She was armed with a list of written instructions.  They went to work at once, setting aside the things to be sold; folding and packing the scanty wardrobe, and putting by themselves the clothes and things that had belonged to little Aleck.  One incident brought tears to their eyes.  In moving out the trunk a large pasteboard box fell down, and the contents dropped upon the floor.  The nurse stooped to pick up the things, some pieces of an old overcoat of fine, dark-blue material, cut into small garments, basted, ready to be sewed; a tissue-paper pattern in a printed envelope marked “Boy’s suit.”  Courtland lifted up the cover to put it on again, and there they saw, in a child’s stiff little printing letters, the inscription, “Aleck’s new Sunday suit,” and underneath, like a subtitle, in smaller letters, “Made out of father’s best overcoat.”

“Poor little kid!” said Courtland.  “He never got to wear it!”

“He’s wearing something far better!” said the nurse, cheerfully; “and think what he’s been spared.  He’ll never know the lack of a new suit again!”

Courtland looked at her thoughtfully.  “You believe in the resurrection, don’t you?”

“I certainly do!” said the nurse.  “If I didn’t I’d get another job.  I couldn’t see lives go out the way I do, and those left behind, suffering, and not go crazy if I didn’t believe in the resurrection.  You are a college student.  I suppose you’ve got beyond believing things.  It isn’t the fashion to believe in God and the Bible any more, I understand, not if you’re supposed to have any brains.  But I thank God He’s left me the resurrection.  And when you come to face the loss of those you love you’ll wish you believed in it, too.”

“But I do,” said Courtland, quietly, making his second confession of faith.  “I never thought much about it till lately.  It goes along with a Christ, of course.  There had to be a resurrection if there was a Christ!”

“Well, I certainly am glad there’s one college student that has some sense!” said the nurse, looking at him with admiration.  “I guess you had a good mother.”

“No,” said Courtland, shaking his head.  “I never knew my own mother.  That’ll be one of the things for me to look forward to in the resurrection.  I was like all the rest of the fellows—­thought I knew it all, and didn’t believe anything till something happened!  I was in a fire and one of the fellows died!  He was a great Christian, and I saw his face when he died!  And then, afterward—­maybe you’ll think I’m nuts when I tell you—­but Christ came and stood by me in the smoke and talked with me and I knew Him!  He’s been with me more or less ever since.”