to which place he had unexpectedly
returned, and therefore they had been able to reach him by message to
Chicago and a telegraphic dispatch. Dr. Gaston wished to see him; the
youth had been his ward as well as almost child, and there were business
matters to be arranged between them. Anne's tears fell as she read of
her dear old teacher's danger, and the impulse came to her to go to him
at once. Was she not his child as well as Rast? But the impulse was
checked by the remainder of the letter. Miss Lois wrote, sadly, that she
had tried to keep it from Anne, but had not succeeded: since August her
small income had been much reduced, owing to the failure of a New
Hampshire bank, and she now found that with all her effort they could
not quite live on what was left. "Very nearly, dear child. I think, with
_thirty_ dollars, I can manage until spring. Then everything will be
_cheaper_. I should not have kept it from you if it had not happened at
the _very time_ of your trouble with that _wicked old woman_, and I did
not wish to add to your care. But the boys have what is called _fine_
appetites (I wish they were not quite so 'fine'), and of course _this_
winter, and never before, my provisions were spoiled in my own cellar."

Anne had intended to send to Miss Lois all her small savings on
Christmas-day. She now went to the principal of the school, asked that
the payment of her salary might be advanced, and forwarded all she was
able to send to the poverty-stricken little household in the
church-house. That night she wept bitter tears; the old chaplain was
dying, and she could not go to him; the children were perhaps suffering.
For the first time in a life of poverty she felt its iron hand crushing
her down. Her letter to Rast lay before her; she could not send it now
and disturb the last hours on earth of their dear old friend. She laid
it aside and waited--waited through those long hours of dreary suspense
which those must bear who are distant from the dying beds of their loved
ones.

In the mean time Rast had arrived. Miss Lois wrote of the chaplain's joy
at seeing him. The next letter contained the tidings that death had
come; early in the morning, peacefully, with scarcely a sigh, the old
man's soul had passed from earth. Colonel Bryden, coming in soon
afterward, and looking upon the calm face, had said, gently,

"Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, b