strong, prosperous life."

"Tell me anything you wish. I always have better thoughts and impulses
after being with you."

"Please don't regard me as egotistical, or offend me by thinking I am
trying to be better than others. Why shouldn't I help that poor girl?
We often dance all night for fun; why can't we watch occasionally for
pity? And in simple truth it will be a long time before the ache for
that poor creature will go out of my heart. It came very close home,
Graydon--very close. It brought to mind another girl, who was once
scarcely stronger or better than Tilly Wendall is to-day, but God was
kind. Tilly also has great black eyes, and they do look so large and
pathetic in the wan little face! At first they did not notice me much.
I was only another of the watchers who had come to aid her mother.
It's astonishing how kind these plain country people are to one
another in trouble, and many a housewife in this region has toiled all
day and then sat up with the poor child the livelong night.

"For the first few hours I could do little more than help her move
in her weak restlessness, and give remedies to relieve her incessant
cough. The poor thing seemed neither more nor less than a victim of
disease, that with a cruelty almost malign had tortured her. I can't
explain how this awful impression grew upon me. It was as if viewless,
brutal hands had racked the emaciated form until intelligence was
gone, and then, not content, would continue their vindictive work
while breath remained in the body. As my watch was prolonged this
impression grew into a nightmare of horror. The still house, the
silent, white, beautiful world without, and that frail young girl
tortured hour after hour under my eyes by fever and a convulsive,
incessant, remorseless cough."

She buried her face in her hands, and for a moment or two her voice
was choked with sobs.

"Oh, Madge," cried Graydon, almost fiercely, "you anger me! I would
strangle a man who harmed a hair of such a child's head. How can I
worship a God who sends or permits such a thing? You are braver than
I. I could see a man shot, but I couldn't look upon what you have
described. Yet the picture brings back the moment when we parted--when
you struggled feebly in my arms with a premonition of your almost
mortal weakness, and then sank back white and deathlike. If you had
not made so wise and brave an effort you might have lingered on in
torture like this poor girl. You stood in