" 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?"

And Ester answered, with firmly-drawn lips "As that Savior hears me,
and will help me _never_!"

CHAPTER XXII.

"LITTLE PLUM PIES."

Ester was in the kitchen trimming off the puffy crusts of endless
pies--the old brown calico morning dress, the same huge bib apron
which had been through endless similar scrapes with her--every thing
about her looking exactly as it had three months ago, and yet so far
as Ester and her future--yes, and the future of every one about
her was concerned, things were very different. Perhaps Sadie had a
glimmering of some strange change as she eyed her sister curiously,
and took note that there was a different light in her eye, and a sort
of smoothness on the quiet face that she had never noticed before. In
fact, Sadie mi