this bold way, of the unhappy
question; but yet, why not? for 'twas asked in purest anxiety, in the
way of Parson Lute, whom all children loved.

"Are you clinging," says he, "to the Cross?"

Elizabeth listlessly stared at the rafters.

"Have you laid hold on the only Hope of escape?"

The child Judith--whose grief was my same agony--sobbed heart-brokenly.

"Judith!" Elizabeth called, her apathy vanished. "Poor little
Judith!"

"No, my daughter," the parson gently protested. "This is not the
time," said he. "Turn your heart away from these earthly affections,"
he pleaded, his voice fallen to an earnest whisper. "Oh, daughter,
fix your eyes upon the Cross!"

Elizabeth was sullen. "I wants Judith," she complained.

"You have no time, now, my daughter, to think of these perishing human
ties."

"I _wants_ Judith!"

"Mere earthly affection, daughter! 'And if a man'--"

"An' Judith," the woman persisted, "wants _me_!"

"Nay," the parson softly chided. He was kind--patient with her
infirmity. 'Twas the way of Parson Lute. With gentleness, with a
tactful humoring, he would yet win her attention. But, "Oh," he
implored, as though overcome by a flooding realization of the nature
and awful responsibility of his mission, "can you not think of your
soul?"

"Judith, dear!"

The child arose.

"No!" said the parson, quietly. "No, child!"

The wind shook the house to its crazy foundations and drove the crest
of a breaker against the panes.

"I wants t' _tell_ she, parson!" Elizabeth wailed. "An I wants
she--jus' _wants_ she--anyhow--jus' for love!"

"Presently, daughter; not now."

"She--she's my _child_!"

"Presently, daughter."

Judith wept again.

"Sir!" Elizabeth gasped--bewildered, terrified.

"Not now, daughter."

All the anger and complaint had gone out of Elizabeth's eyes; they
were now filled with wonder and apprehension. Flashes of intelligence
appeared and failed and came again. It seemed to me, who watched, that
in some desperate way, with her broken mind, she tried to solve the
mystery of this refusal. Then 'twas as though some delusion--some
terror of her benighted state--seized upon her: alarm changed to
despair; she rose in bed, but put her hand to her heart and fell
back.

"He better stop it!" Aunt Esther All muttered.

The four wives of Whisper Cove bitterly murmured against her.

"He's savin' her soul," said William Buttle's wife.

They were interested, these wives, in the oper