keep back the tears. "Here, Jim,
take the school keys to Miss Helen, and ask her to take my place to-day.
I'll start in ten minutes for Patsy."

"Thank yer, miss. I tell yer, he's a crooked little chap, but he's as
smart as they make 'em; 'nd annyhow, he's all the folks I've got in the
world, 'nd I hope we kin pull him through."

* * * * *

"Pull him through!" Had years passed over Patsy's head since I saw him
last? He seemed to have grown old with the night's pain, but the eyes
shone out with new lustre and brilliancy, making ready, I thought, to
receive the heavenly visions.

We were alone. I could not bear Mr. Kennett's presence, and had
dispatched him for the doctor. I knelt by the bedside, and took his cold
hand in mine. I could not pray God to spare him, it was so clear that He
had better take him to Himself.

"I knowed you'd come, Miss Kate," he said faintly; "I knowed you'd hurry
up; you's allers hurryin' up for us boys."

Oh, how beautiful, how awesome, it is to be the messenger of peace to an
unhappy soul! So great a joy is it to bear that it is not given to many
twice in a lifetime.

The rain beat upon the frail roof, the wind blew about the little house,
and a darkness of fast-gathering black clouds fell into the room in
place of the morning sunbeams. It was a gloomy day for a journey, but if
one were traveling from shadow into sunshine, I thought, it would not
matter much.

"Mis' Kennett says I must hev a priest, but I don't want no priest but
you," whispered the faint voice as I bent over the pillows. "What does
priests do when folks is sick, Miss Kate?"

"They pray, Patsy."

"What fur?"

I paused, for in my grief I could think of no simple way of telling that
ignorant little child what they did pray for.

"They will pray for you, dear," I said at length, "because they will
want to talk to God about the little boy who is coming to Him; to tell
Him how glad they are that he is to be happy at last, but that they
shall miss him very, very much."

"The priest lives clear out Market Street, 'nd he wouldn't git 'ere
'fore God knew the hull thing 'thout his tellin' of it. You pray, Miss
Kate."

_"O thou dear, loving Father in Heaven, Patsy's Father and mine, who
givest all the little children into their mothers' arms, if one of them
is lost and wandering about the world forlorn and alone, surely Thou
wilt take him to a better home! We send little Patsy to Thee, an