be ashamed of herself and of
everything she did.

"I'm not unselfish, and I'm not good," she said, smoothing the old
lady's coverlet.

Mrs. Jones chuckled faintly. "Pretty dear," was her only comment.

"I don't think I'm pretty and I know I'm not a dear," said Priscilla,
quite vexed.

"Ain't you then, deary," murmured Mrs. Jones soothingly.

Priscilla saw it was no use arguing, and taking up the Bible that
always lay on the table by the bed began to read aloud. She read and
read till both were quieted,--Mrs. Jones into an evidently sweet
sleep, she herself into peace. Then she left off and sat for some time
watching the old lady, the open Bible in-her lap, her soul filled
with calm words and consolations, wondering what it could be like
being so near death. Must it not be beautiful, thought Priscilla, to
slip away so quietly in that sunny room, with no sound to break the
peace but the ticking of the clock that marked off the last minutes,
and outside the occasional footstep of a passer-by still hurrying on
life's business? Wonderful to have done with everything, to have it
all behind one, settled, lived through, endured. The troublous joys
as well as the pains, all finished; the griefs and the stinging
happinesses, all alike lived down; and now evening, and sleep. In the
few days Priscilla had known her the old lady had drawn visibly nearer
death. Lying there on the pillow, so little and light that she hardly
pressed it down at all, she looked very near it indeed. And how kind
Death was, rubbing away the traces of what must have been a sordid
existence, set about years back with the usual coarse pleasures and
selfish hopes,--how kind Death was, letting all there was of spirit
shine out so sweetly at the end. There was an enlarged photograph of
Mrs. Jones and her husband over the fireplace, a photograph taken for
their silver wedding; she must have been about forty-five; how kind
Death was, thought Priscilla, looking from the picture to the figure
on the bed. She sighed a little, and got up. Life lay before her, an
endless ladder up each of whose steep rungs she would have to clamber;
in every sort of weather she would have to clamber, getting more
battered, more blistered with every rung.... She looked wistfully at
the figure on the bed, and sighed a little. Then she crept out, and
softly shut the door.

She walked home lost in thought. As she was going up the hill to her
cottage Fritzing suddenly emerged from