ror.

There was another second's dead silence. It was broken by a woman's
voice. Annie had taken a step forward close to the boy's elbow, so that
her voice was in his ear. She could not kneel, but instinctively she
clasped her hands and bent her head reverently as she said in low but
clear tones which were carried throughout the length and breadth of the
room, and thrilled in every ear, the Lord's Prayer. At its close she
went on without hesitation in the same wonderfully audible voice: "God
bless this little boy. Forgive him every wrong he has ever done. Keep
him safe, and raise him up again, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

Another voice--a deeper one--responded to the "Amen." It was said by the
famous operator's enemies that he was lax in his religious opinions, and
that he rarely found time to go to church. Nevertheless it was he who
with grave heartiness repeated the Amen.

The little lad had sunk back when she began to speak, and there he lay
without giving her a word or sign of thanks--his best acknowledgment of
her compliance with what might be his last wish being his quaking
submission. He could not keep still his quivering flesh, or hold back
altogether his piercing cries and piteous moans, but he bit his tongue
in seeking to stifle them. For he was not fighting with his Maker and
his fate; he was trying in his boyish way, with his small fortitude and
resignation, to endure, in the might of the support which had been asked
for him.

Annie too clenched her teeth, while she opened her eyes to take in
everything that passed before them, as a mirror may be turned to receive
the minutest impression from the scene it reflects. But she did not hear
a single shriek or wail, because her ears were filled with the higher
harmonies which she had called forth. She clasped one of the boy's
trembling hands in her own warm one, which did not grow cold in the
contact. She was on the alert to meet his only half-seeing gaze, and to
give back a glance of tender sympathy and protection--the true mother's
look that is to be found when occasion calls for it in every good
woman's face,--ay, it may even be seen in the precociously earnest,
kindly eyes of many a loving woman-child.

There were plenty of other helpers to render the surgeon all the
assistance he needed in his work, with far more celerity and ability
than Annie could have supplied. But while sense lingered in the little
patient's eyes, it was to the woman he turned f