"O, nothing Ruth; please wait until I breathe;" and she tried to get up a laugh. "I did not know I was so out of breath. If you wait a minute, I will explain," for Ruth was beginning to protest that something was wrong.

"There now," she said, removing her hat, and leaning back in the rocking chair, "I am ready to put your fears to rest." Then followed an account of the accident and her visit to the family.

"See here, Agnes, it is all very well to sympathize with people in distress, when you don't have to sacrifice yourself; but you are not called upon to do more than you are able to perform. And it is quite enough for you to teach school, without running to see all the youngsters whose fathers get tipsy and break their legs," was the opinion Guy gave after hearing her story.

"What do you charge for advice, Mr. Lawyer?" she asked, laughingly, as springing up she advanced to the table and begged Ruth to hurry with the tea, for she was "as hungry as a hawk."

Guy followed, declaring that "if all clients were as self-willed and independent as she, the lawyers might pull down their shingles, take a last look at c.o.ke and Blackstone and then----"

"Well, and then?"--queried Ruth, very much amused.

"Why----then go to gra.s.s."

"Little boys should not use slang," said Agnes, demurely.

"Neither should little girls act contrary to the wishes of their big brother," was the reply.

After a blessing had been silently asked, Agnes said:

"Do you really think I am self-willed, Guy?"

"Of course I do; it does not require a knowledge of law to decide that."

"How do I show it? I never meant to be so."

"Well, you succeed pretty well if you don't. I should not like to see you make the effort, if that is the case. How do you show it? Why, by thinking you know better than other people. Don't she, Ruth, and acting out her thoughts?"

"You are partly right and partly wrong," was the reply. "Agnes is not in the least self-willed. It is I who may be called that. In this you are wrong. You are right in saying she acts out her thoughts; but you give a wrong reason. It is not because she thinks she knows better than others. She does not trust her own judgment nearly as much as either you or I."

"Now don't you begin to be mysterious, Ruth, if she don't, whose does she trust?"

"The Lord's."

"Oh!" and Guy had no more to say. Agnes could have embraced her sister then. She wanted to say something to Guy about Ruth, because she knew her better than even he or any one could know her. But he was so silent now, perhaps this was not the best time. Guy ate a little, Agnes thought, and she did not feel so hungry after all; so when Ruth had finished she said: "Let me wash the tea things myself to night, Ruth, I have not been doing anything all day. I will be ready in time for church." She plead as eagerly as if asking a great favor, and Ruth amused at her childishness, with a warning about not placing the gla.s.ses in too hot water, ran up stairs, little thinking of the effect her words had either upon the one for whom they were spoken, or the one to whom they were addressed.

"If we had Martha Nelson, she could do so much for Ruth when I am at school," thought Agnes. "But the money, where is that to come from?"

Turning it over and over in her mind, she could see no possibility of having Martha, but somehow there was an impression that Martha should be with them. On the way to church, she decided to speak to Ruth about it.

"Did you ever have impressions that certain things _should_ be, Ruth, and yet the things seemed impossible?"

"I scarcely understand you," Ruth replied. "What kind of things?

spiritual?"

"No, spiritual impressions of temporal things, I suppose. But this is why I ask." Then she told of Martha's mother wanting to find a place for her, and of the impression amounting almost to a conviction that she was to come to them. "Only I can't see where the money is to come from."

"How much does her mother want a week?" asked Ruth, thoughtfully; for when Agnes had these impressions, they generally had weight with her sister. Indeed she sometimes felt as if the Lord told their Agnes more than almost any other Christian; that she was peculiarly favored of G.o.d.

"I did not think of asking her, but it can't be much, for she is young and will require to be taught. Why do you ask, Ruth?"

"I hardly know; perhaps if she did not want much, we could take her."

"Well, I shall ask her mother without giving the reason, and then if it is best, the way will be made clear."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decoration]

CHAPTER VI.

DEATH,--THEN LIFE.

"MRS. Nelson will be willing to let Martha go to a good home for her board and clothing until she learns enough to be ent.i.tled to wages, Ruth," Agnes joyfully announced. After a little consultation as to whether their old dresses could be cut down for her, and some misgiving on the part of Ruth as to the training of such a mere child, when neither of them could devote much time to her, they concluded to make the trial.

"If she's worth anything she will be worth a great deal to me just now, for it will enable me to do what I have long been planning, without seeing any way to accomplish it," thought Ruth.

Martha, poor child, in her great joy at the thought of living with "Miss Agnes," seemed to have forgotten the painful circ.u.mstance which compelled her to leave home. But on the day that her mother finished patching her few clothes, tying them up and telling her she might go at once to her new home, there came sad tidings from the hospital. They need never hope to have the husband and father home again, unless to take one last look before they buried him out of sight.

"Let me stay with you, mother; Miss Agnes will not be angry, and you will be so lonely," plead the child, forgetting everything else in the one great thought of her mother's approaching widowhood.

"Yes, I will be lonely," wailed the mother. "G.o.d only knows the loneliness and heart-ache that is in store for me. But we'll not shed tears now, child, there'll be time enough by and by. We must away to to see him; he'll have a word to say to us I'm thinking."

She meant to be brave, and to keep back the tears until "by and by," but the thought of hearing the last words, perhaps, or what was worse, finding him unable to speak to her, completely unnerved her, and the strength she had all along tried to keep for her children's sake, failed her. In the midst of this scene, while Martha stood beside her mother, wringing her hands and beseeching her not to groan so, Agnes stepped in, having had but one session of school.

"What is it?" she enquired, alarmed. "Your father is not dead, Martha?"

"I don't know, they sent word that he was dying, and we are going to him. Won't you go, Miss Agnes? I am afraid," and the child shuddered as she spoke.

A shudder pa.s.sed through Agnes, but she said: "Yes, I will go with you, but I must find some of the scholars to send home and tell Miss Ruth."

She thought with horror of going there to the hospital, where men and women were lying struggling for life, to be followed by their wild, staring eyes, and their cries of entreaty for relief. For a moment she was possessed with the feeling that she could not encounter the fearful sight, and the question arose: "Why need I cause myself to suffer when I cannot relieve the sufferings I shall witness?" But ashamed of her cowardice, she banished the thought as unworthy a place in her heart, glad to be able to share the sorrows and help to comfort those whose time of trial and sore distress had come.

"I shall need help one day, perhaps," she said to herself, "if Ruth or Guy should be taken first. But I pray G.o.d that I may die before them, unless--" here the child-like-spirit showed itself, and her soul became suddenly strong--"it would be to His glory that I should thus suffer."

A boy was sent with a message to Ruth, and then, as Mrs. Nelson was ready, they set out on their mournful visit. It was a long and silent walk. The heart of the sorrow-stricken woman was too full for words, and Agnes, so young and unaccustomed to such scenes, did not know what was best to say.

The hand that held Martha's tightened its grasp as they came within sight of the hospital, and although the voice was very low that whispered in the woman's ear, "Be strong, G.o.d will help you," it gave courage and re-a.s.surance.

Up the broad steps and through the long corridors they pa.s.sed; Martha trembling and drawing closer, while Agnes dared not look to the right or left. Presently they stopped before a curtained recess, and drawing aside the curtain Mrs. Nelson pa.s.sed in. Martha wanted her teacher with her, she said; but when she was told her father might have things to say to his wife and child alone, she withdrew her hand and followed her mother. It was not long, however, until the nurse came out with a request for Martha's teacher.

"He wants some singing, Miss, and the little girl told him you could sing beautiful," said the man. As Agnes stepped near the bedside, Martha called out eagerly, "Here she is, father, this is Miss Agnes."

He tried to speak, but it was only a movement of the lips, no sound came. Sitting where he could see her, Agnes began in a low, clear voice, to sing:

"There is a fountain fill'd with blood,--"

When she came to the lines--