her case,--whether she would
live or die,--whether she would languish for years, or, all at once,
roused by some strong impression, or in obedience to some unexplained
movement of the vital forces, take up her bed and walk. For her bed
had become her home, where she lived as if it belonged to her organism.
There she lay, a not unpleasing invalid to contemplate, always looking
resigned, patient, serene, except when the one deeper grief was stirred,
always arrayed with simple neatness, and surrounded with little tokens
that showed the constant presence with her of tasteful and thoughtful
affection. She did not know, nobody could know, how steadily, how
silently all this artificial life was draining the veins and blanching
the cheek of her daughter Bathsheba, one of the everyday, air-breathing
angels without nimbus or aureole who belong to every story which lets
us into a few households, as much as the stars and the flowers belong to
everybody's verses.

Bathsheba's devotion to her mother brought its own reward, but it was
not in the shape of outward commendation. Some of the more censorious
members of her father's congregation were severe in their remarks upon
her absorption in the supreme object of her care. It seems that this had
prevented her from attending to other duties which they considered more
imperative. They did n't see why she shouldn't keep a Sabbath-school
as well as the rest, and as to her not comin' to meetin' three times
on Sabbath day like other folks, they couldn't account for it, except
because she calculated that she could get along without the means of
grace, bein' a minister's daughter. Some went so far as to doubt if she
had ever experienced religion, for all she was a professor. There was
a good many indulged a false hope. To this, others objected her life of
utter self-denial and entire surrender to her duties towards her mother
as some evidence of Christian character. But old Deacon Rumrill put down
that heresy by showing conclusively from Scott's Commentary on Romans
xi. 1-6, that this was altogether against her chance of being called,
and that the better her disposition to perform good works, the more
unlikely she was to be the subject of saving grace. Some of these severe
critics were good people enough themselves, but they loved active work
and stirring companionship, and would have found their real cross if
they had been called to sit at an invalid's bedside.

As for the Rev. Mr. Stoker, h