same disease; for weeks
her life was in great jeopardy, and even after the danger was past, the
improvement was so very slow that her husband was filled with anxiety for
her.

Meanwhile the beloved invalid at Ion was slowly sinking to the grave. Nay,
rather, as she would have it, journeying rapidly towards her heavenly
home, "the land of the leal," the city which hath foundations, whose
builder and Maker is God.

She suffered, but with a patience that never failed, a cheerfulness and
joyful looking to the end, that made her sick-room a sort of little heaven
below.

Her children were with her almost constantly through the day; but Mr.
Travilla, watchful as ever over his idolized young wife, would not allow
her to lose a night's rest, insisting on her retiring at the usual hour.
Nor would he allow her ever to assist in lifting his mother, or any of the
heavy nursing; she might smooth her pillows, give her medicines, order
dainties prepared to tempt the failing appetite, and oversee the negro
women, who were capable nurses, and one of whom was always at hand night
and day, ready to do whatever was required.

Elsie dearly loved her mother-in-law, and felt it both a duty and delight
to do all in her power for her comfort and consolation; but when she heard
that her own beloved father was ill, she could not stay away from him, but
made a daily visit to the Oaks and to his bedside. She was uniformly
cheerful in his presence, but wept in secret because she was denied the
privilege of nursing him in his illness.

Then her sorrow and anxiety for Rose were great, and all the more because,
Mrs. Travilla being then at the worst, she could very seldom leave her for
even the shortest call at the Oaks.

In the afternoon of a sweet bright Sabbath in March, a little group
gathered in Mrs. Travilla's room. Her pastor was there: a man of large
heart full of tender sympathy for the sick, the suffering, the bereaved,
the poor, the distressed in mind, body, or estate; a man mighty in the
Scriptures; with its warnings, its counsels, its assurances, its sweet and
precious promises ever ready on his tongue; one who by much study of the
Bible, accompanied by fervent prayer for the wisdom promised to him that
asks it, had learned to wield wisely and with success "the sword of the
Spirit which is the word of God." Like Noah he was a preacher of
righteousness, and like Paul could say, "I ceased not to warn every one
night and day with tears."