nd then Madge sighed: "How
young, fresh, and full of beautiful life the world seems this morning!
The contrast with that poor, suffering, dying girl is too great.
Nature often appears strangely indifferent."

"I am not indifferent, Madge. I kept a sort of watch with you for an
hour or two last night in the wee, sma' hours, and tried to imagine
you sitting in just such an open window as I saw there, with the
moonlight on your face; and I thought that the poor girl had one good
angel watching over her. You know I am a man of the world, but an act
of ministry like this touches me closely."

"No, Graydon; not a good angel, but a very human creature was the
watcher."

"Tell me about it--that is, continue the story from the point where
Mary left off;" and he explained about Mrs. Muir's account of the
previous evening.

"Well, you know what a wilful creature I am?" she began, with the
glimmer of a smile.

"Oh, yes; I've learned to understand that feature of your royal
womanhood. You are trying to be a woman, Madge. Well, you are one--the
kind I believe in. See how much faith I have--I believe, yet don't
understand."

"No jesting or compliments this morning, please; I'm too heavy-hearted
for them now."

"You ought to be serene and happy after so kind and good a deed."

"No," she said, decisively; "that sympathy must be superficial which
can pass almost immediately into self-complacency. Oh, Graydon, it is
all so sad, yet not sad; so passing strange, yet as natural and true
as life and death! I did sit for hours just as you imagined, looking
out on the great, still mountains. Never did they seem so vast
and stable, and our life so vapor-like, as when I heard that poor
fluttering breath come and go at my side. There was a time when this
truth grew oppressive; but later on that feeble life, which seemed
but a breath, came to mean something greater and more real than the
mountains themselves. But I am anticipating. As soon as Mary departed
I became as imperious as I dared to be. I saw that the poor mother had
reached about the limit of her endurance, and I arranged the lounge in
the sitting-room, so that she could lie down at once, saying: 'I am a
stranger, and young, and it's not natural that you should be willing
to give up to me too much, nor do I wish you to be far away; yet I
can see just how sorely in need of rest you are. You must finish your
supper, give me your directions, and then lie down and get every bit
of