So being often a prey to anxious thoughts, the poor lady pined and faded away, and presently catching a cold, she began to be troubled with difficulty in breathing, and her sleep went from her. It was now that we learned the worth of Grace Standfast, who fairly took us poor silly girls in hand as her pupils, setting us tasks to do both in the house and the sick chamber, and keeping us in heart with cheerful words and looks. But for all her skill and her cheerfulness, our patient visibly grew worse and worse, and as the year wore into winter, we saw that we should lose her. And now there befell a strange thing, which I will tell just as it happened, and I think there can be no superstition in dwelling on it so far. Aunt Golding's sickness had now become so sore, that it was needful for one of us always to watch with her; and on the night I speak of it was my turn to do so. She was very uneasy the first part of my watch, but about midnight she fell into a deep sleep, and continued so for an hour, when, hearing no sound, I went to look on her, and saw such heavenly peace on her sleeping countenance, that I could have thought a light shone from it like the glory about a saint's head in a picture. I do not know how long I had stood gazing on her, when all at once she woke, and, smiling at me,-- 'Is it thou, Lucy?' said she; 'that is well. I have good news for thee;' at which I began to fear she was light-headed, for how should she have news that I knew not? But presently she went on, with many pauses because of her difficult breathing. 'Thou hast grieved much, Lucy, thinking thy sailor would never come home to thee again; be at peace, he shall come home, a better man,--and find thee a holier woman for all the troubles thou shalt have seen.' 'How do you know? how can you tell?' I cried. 'I cannot tell thee now,' she said, 'but I do know. And thou hast seen, dear heart, how I have grieved over my Andrew--my heart's child, the comfort of my old age; I have thought he was clean gone out of the right way, for all his sincerity. It has been shown me in my sleep, that I had no need thus to grieve. His rashness may bring him sharp trials, but even through those shall he enter in. The light that leads him is the true Light. And though he and his fellows are but erring men,--like all others,--yet even their trivial errors shall have their use; in days to come men shall say that these despised and persecuted believers have done nobly--for their country and for the world.' 'Then, do you think,' I said, in some trouble, 'that we are all wrong, and only Andrew and those like-minded in the right?'