"Oh, please, Miss; but there is nothing here for you to read but the
Bible and a hymn-book."

"Well, I will read the Bible. What would you like?"

Phoebe chose neither prophecy, psalm, nor epistle, but the last three
chapters of St. Matthew. She, perhaps, hardly knew the reason why, but
she could not have made a better choice. When we come near death, or
near something which may be worse, all exhortation, theory, promise,
advice, dogma fail. The one staff which, perhaps, may not break under
us, is the victory achieved in the like situation by one who has preceded
us; and the most desperate private experience cannot go beyond the garden
of Gethsemane. The hero is a young man filled with dreams and an ideal
of a heavenly kingdom which he was to establish on earth. He is
disappointed by the time he is thirty. He has not a friend who
understands him, save in so far as the love of two or three poor women is
understanding. One of his disciples denies him, another betrays him, and
in the presence of the hard Roman tribunal all his visions are nothing,
and his life is a failure. He is to die a cruel death; but the
bitterness of the cup must have been the thought that in a few days--or
at least in a few months or years--everything would be as if he had never
been. This is the pang of death, even to the meanest. "He that goeth
down to the grave," says Job, "shall return no more to his house, neither
shall his place know him any more." A higher philosophy would doubtless
set no store on our poor personality, and would even rejoice in the
thought of its obliteration or absorption, but we cannot always lift
ourselves to that level, and the human sentiment remains. Catharine read
through the story of the conflict, and when she came to the resurrection
she felt, and Phoebe felt, after her fashion, as millions have felt
before, that this was the truth of death. It may be a legend, but the
belief in it has carried with it other beliefs which are vital.

The reading ceased, and Phoebe fell asleep for a little. She presently
waked and called Catharine.

"Miss Catharine," she whispered, drawing Catharine's hand between both
her own thin hands, "I have something to say to you. Do you know I loved
Tom a little; but I don't think he loved me. His mind was elsewhere;
I--saw where it was, and I don't wonder. I makes no difference, and
never has, in my thoughts,--either of him or of you. It will be better
for him in every