cheeks, and his heart growing tenfold softer and warmer toward the writer, who confessed to having wronged him, and wished so much that she dare tell him all.  What was it she had to tell?  Would he ever know? he asked himself, as he put the letter back where he found it.  Yes, she would surely tell him, if she lived, as live she must.  She was dearer to him now than she had ever been, and the lips unused to prayer, save as a form, prayed most earnestly that Ethie might be spared.  Then, as there flashed upon him a sense of the inconsistency there was in keeping aloof from God all his life, and going to him only when danger threatened, he bowed his head in very shame, and the prayer died on his lips.  But Andy always prayed—­at least he had for many years; and so the wise strong brother sought the simple weaker one, and asked him to do what he had not power to do.

Andy’s swollen eyes and haggard face bore testimony to his sorrow, and his voice was very low and earnest, as he replied:  “Brother Dick, I’m prayin’ all the time.  I’ve said that prayer for the sick until I’ve worn it threadbare, and now every breath I draw has in it the petition, ’We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.’  There’s nothing in that about Ethie, it’s true; but God knows I mean her, and will hear me all the same.”

There was a touching simplicity in Andy’s faith, which went to the heart of Richard, making him feel of how little avail was knowledge or wisdom or position if there was lacking the one thing needful, which Andy so surely possessed.  That night was a long, wearisome one at the farmhouse; but when the morning broke hope and joy came with it, for Ethelyn was better, and in the brown eyes, which unclosed so languidly, there was a look of consciousness, which deepened into a look of surprise and joyful recognition as they rested upon Aunt Barbara.

“Is this Chicopee?  Am I home?  Oh, Aunt Barbara, I am so glad! you can’t guess how glad, or know how tired and sorry your poor Ethie has been,” came brokenly from the pale lips, as Ethelyn moved nearer to Aunt Barbara and laid her head upon the motherly bosom, where it had so often lain in the dear old Chicopee days.

She did not notice Richard, or seem to know that she was elsewhere than in Chicopee, back in the old home, and Richard’s pulse throbbed quickly as he saw the flush come over Ethie’s face, and the look of pain creep into her eyes, when a voice broke the illusion and told her she was still in Olney, with him and the mother-in-law leaning over the bed-rail saying, “Speak to her, Richard.”

“Ethie, don’t you know me, too?—­I came with Aunt Barbara.”