She, too, looked pale and careworn, and had evidently been weeping.

“O, Mrs. Travilla!” she exclaimed, and burst into a fresh flood of tears.

Elsie, her own eyes filling with sympathetic drops, put her arm about her, whispering, “My poor dear child! what can I do to comfort you?”

“Nothing! nothing!” sobbed the girl, resting her head for a moment on Elsie’s shoulder; “But come into the parlor, dear Mrs. Travilla, and let me call mamma.”

“Ah, stay a moment,” Elsie said, detaining her, “are you sure, quite sure that I can do nothing to help you?”

Annie shook her head.  “This trouble is beyond human help.  Yes, yes, you can pray for us, and for him.”

The last words were almost inaudible from emotion, and she hurried away, leaving the guest sole occupant of the room.

Involuntarily Elsie glanced about her, and a pang went to her heart as she noticed that every article of luxury, almost of comfort, had disappeared; the pictures were gone from the walls, the pretty ornaments from mantel and centre-table; coarse cheap matting covered the floor in lieu of the costly carpet of other days, and rosewood and damask had given place to cottage furniture of the simplest and most inexpensive kind.

“How they must feel the change!” she thought within herself, “and yet perhaps not just now; these minor trials are probably swallowed up in a greater one.”

Mrs. Foster came in looking shabbier and more heart-broken than at their last interview.

“My dear Mrs. Travilla, this is kind!” she said making a strong effort to speak with composure but failing utterly as she met the tender sympathizing look in the sweet soft eyes of her visitor.

Elsie put her arms about her and wept with her.  “Some one is ill, I fear?” she said at length.

“Yes—­my son.  O Mrs. Travilla, I am going to lose him!” and she was well nigh convulsed with bitter, choking sobs.

“While there is life there is hope,” whispered Elsie, “who can say what God may do for us in answer to our prayers?”

The mother shook her head in sad hopelessness.

“The doctor has given him up; says nothing more can be done.”

“Dr. Barton?”

“No, no, Savage.  Oh if we could but have had Barton at first the result might have been different.  I have no confidence in Savage, even when sober, and he’s drunk nearly all the time now.”

“Oh then things may not be so bad as he represents them.  Let me send over for Dr. Barton at once.”

“Thank you, but I must ask Wilkins first.  He was wounded some weeks ago; injured internally, and has been suffering agonies of pain ever since.  I wanted Dr. Barton sent for at once, but he would not hear of it, said the risk was too great and he must trust to Savage.  But now—­” she paused, overcome with grief.

“But now the greater risk is in doing without him,” suggested Elsie.  “May I not send immediately?”