tinuous prayer: "Don't let Bessie die."

All day she lay motionless as the dead, scarcely lifting even an eyelid,
or showing that she was conscious of what was passing around her, save
when her mother's low, moaning cry, "Bessie, oh, Bessie, I cannot give
you up," sounded through the room. Then she moved uneasily, and said:

"Don't, mother, please; God knows best. He will care for you--and
you--you--will keep your promise?"

"Yes, child; so help me God!" Daisy answered, excitedly. "I promised you
to be a better woman, and I will; but oh, my Heavenly Father, don't let
Bessie die."

It was the echo of Grey's prayer, and Flossie took it up and made it
hers, and so the day wore on and the night stole into the quiet room,
and it was time for Grey to say good-by, for he was to leave on the
early train, and he had yet much to do in settling bills both for
himself and Daisy, and providing for her needs in case Neil did not
come.

"If I thought he would not be with you to-morrow I would stay, though to
do so would greatly disappoint my Aunt Lucy," he said to Daisy, who was
unselfish enough to bid him go, though she knew how she should miss
him, and fell intuitively that twenty Neils could not fill his place.

"I cannot ask you to stay longer. May God bless you for all you have
been to us," she said, as she took his hand at parting, and then turned
away with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart.

Only Flossie was with Bessie, who was sleeping quietly, when Grey
entered the room to say farewell to the young girl, whose face looked so
small and thin, and white as it rested upon the pillows. When her fever
was at its height and her heavy hair seemed to trouble her, her
physician had commanded it to be cut off.

"It will all come out anyway if she lives," he said, and so the cruel
scissors had severed the long, bright tresses which had been Bessie's
crowning glory.

But the hair, which had only been cut short, grew rapidly and lay in
little curls all over her head making her look more like a child than a
girl of nineteen.

Flossie knew it was Grey's farewell, and guessed that he would rather be
alone with Bessie, even though she were sleeping. So she arose, and
offering him her chair, stole softly out and closed the door behind her.

For a few moments Grey sat gazing intently upon the beautiful face as if
he would stamp its image upon his heart, so that whatever came, whether
for weal or woe, he should never forget