Doctor Tom or Doctor Jones
could have brought her through. But, you see, Scott had offended
them both, and they'd stopped trading at his store, so he would have
young Doctor Fox, a boy just out of college and a stranger. He got
scared and didn't know what to do. Mrs. Spinny felt he wasn't doing
right, so she sent for Mrs. Freeze and me. It seemed like Nelly had
got discouraged. Scott would move into their big new house before
the plastering was dry, and though 't was summer, she had taken a
terrible cold that seemed to have drained her, and she took no
interest in fixing the place up. Mrs. Spinny had been down with her
back again and wasn't able to help, and things was just anyway. We
won't talk about that, Margaret; I think 't would hurt Mrs. Spinny
to have you know. She nearly died of mortification when she sent for
us, and blamed her poor back. We did get Nelly fixed up nicely
before she died. I prevailed upon Doctor Tom to come in at the last,
and it 'most broke his heart. 'Why, Mis' Dow,' he said, 'if you'd
only have come and told me how 't was, I'd have come and carried her
right off in my arms.'"

"Oh, Mrs. Dow," I cried, "then it needn't have been?"

Mrs. Dow dropped her needle and clasped her hands quickly. "We
mustn't look at it that way, dear," she said tremulously and a
little sternly; "we mustn't let ourselves. We must just feel that
our Lord wanted her _then_, and took her to Himself. When it was all
over, she did look so like a child of God, young and trusting, like
she did on her baptizing night, you remember?"

I felt that Mrs. Dow did not want to talk any more about Nelly then,
and, indeed, I had little heart to listen; so I told her I would go
for a walk, and suggested that I might stop at Mrs. Spinny's to see
the children.

Mrs. Dow looked up thoughtfully at the clock. "I doubt if you'll
find little Margaret there now. It's half-past four, and she'll have
been out of school an hour and more. She'll be most likely coasting
on Lupton's Hill. She usually makes for it with her sled the minute
she is out of the school-house door. You know, it's the old hill
where you all used to slide. If you stop in at the church about six
o'clock, you'll likely find Mrs. Spinny there with the baby. I
promised to go down and help Mrs. Freeze finish up the tree, and
Mrs. Spinny said she'd run in with the baby, if 't wasn't too
bitter. She won't leave him alone with the Swede girl. She's like a
young woman with her