that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have
waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to
talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk
with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he
ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is
he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that
Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed.

Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister,
and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman
whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so
fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did
he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost
lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby's characteristic desire to be fixed
up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed
"tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs.
Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some
other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by
the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire
to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded.
Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had
complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and
was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of
Mrs. Plausaby's sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter.

And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the
battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple
problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and
vacillating will is fighting the air.

Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear
me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She
must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was
afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would
die? Didn't he think she might get well?

Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and
that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it.

Didn't Isa think she could get well? She didn't want to die. But then
Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr.