heir of uncounted treasures. She was indeed reading with her
whole soul the proofs she there found of her claim to an inheritance
that makes all earthly riches seem poor indeed.

"I am glad to see you, dear," was her affectionate welcome to me;
"do I know this lady with you?"

"No," I answered; "she is my friend whom I told you the other day I
should bring to see you."

"I am glad to see her if she is your friend," she replied.

"I want you, Susan, if you are strong enough to-day, to repeat to my
friend that little account of yourself that you were once kind
enough to give me."

"What, the whole story?" said Susan, "beginning at the beginning, as
the children say?"

Susan was silent a minute or two, as if to collect her thoughts, and
then said, I have always believed, that, though it seemed strange
that such a good-for-nothing creature as I am should be spared, and
others taken away, that, may be, I was left to give my testimony for
some good purpose, and that my experience might do some good to poor
pilgrims. For

"It is a straight and thorny road,
And mortal spirits tire and faint;
But they forget the mighty God
Who feeds the strength of every saint."

Susan knew half the hymn book by heart, and loved to repeat hymns so
well, that she could hardly have told her story without this
preface. She immediately began as follows:--

"My father, who was a sailor, lost his life at sea when I was two
years old; my mother never had very good health, and about six years
afterward she fell into a consumption. She lived only a year after
she was taken sick. I was too young to remember much of her, but I
have a distinct recollection of seeing her often sitting by a little
stand like this, with an open Bible upon it; and once I was struck
with her looking up to heaven with her hands clasped for a long time
as if she were praying, and then looking at me, and then at the
book; and I saw big tears rolling down her cheeks. She called me to
her, and said, with an earnest but broken voice, God save my child
from the evil that is in the world! and give her the testimony of a
good conscience.

These words I could not forget, for the next day she died. We forget
many things in this world, ladies, but the words of a dying mother
we cannot help remembering. This was the first time I had ever seen
death, but there was such a peaceful, happy expression in my
mother's face, that it did not seem very terrib