se shook his head gravely. "It is a serious case," he said,
"and I do not know Where you will find a nurse. I never remember a
spring when there was so much sickness in the city. I sent my last nurse
to a patient yesterday and since then have had two applications for one.
It is most unfortunate. The young lady will need constant care. She
requires a person of experience."

Pompey, waiting to drive the doctor home, caught the words, spoken as he
descended the steps to enter the carriage, and came forward eagerly. "If
you please, Missus," he said, touching his hat, "Dyce would come. She's
hed a powerful sight of 'sperience nussin' fevers in New Orleans. She'd
be proper glad ter tend Miss 'Vadney."

"How is that?" questioned the busy doctor. "Oh, your wife, my good
fellow? The very thing. Let her come at once."

So Dyce came, and into her sympathetic ears were poured the delirious
ravings of the lonely heart which had been so suddenly torn from its
genial surroundings of love and happiness and thrust into the chilling
atmosphere of misunderstanding and neglect.

Every day the patient grew weaker and after each visit the doctor looked
graver. Mrs. Hildreth began to feel the gnawings of remorse, as she
thought of the lonely girl to whom she had so coldly refused a
daughter's place; and the Judge's thoughts grew unbearable as he
remembered his broken trust; even Louis missed the earnest face which he
had grown to watch with a curious sense of pleasure; while the girls at
school felt their hearts grow warm as they thought of the young cousin
so soon to pass through the valley of the shadow.

But Evadne did not die. The fever spent itself at last and there
followed long days of utter prostration both of mind and body. Dyce's
cheery patience never failed. Her sunny nature diffused a bright
hopefulness throughout the sick chamber, until Evadne would lie in a
dreamy content, almost fancying herself back in the old home as she
listened to the musical tones and watched the dusky hands which so
deftly ministered to her comfort. One day after she had lain for a long
time in silence, she looked up at her faithful nurse and the grey eyes
shone like stars.

"Dyce!" she cried softly. "I have found Jesus Christ!"

CHAPTER IX.

Reginald Hawthorne lay upon a couch on the wide veranda of his lovely
home. The birds held high carnival around him,--nesting in the large
cherry tree, playing hide and seek among the fragrant apple bl