“I am so sorry for the lady, and I want to see her so much, and I mean to pray for her that Heaven will make it better for her sometime;” and that night, while Edna in her lonely bed at Mrs. Dana’s was weeping over her desolation and feeling so friendless and alone, a little crippled child lay on its back, and with hands clasped reverently, prayed for the poor lady whose husband was killed; prayed that “Heaven would bring it right some day, and make it better, and make her well, and make her happy, and make her another husband for Christ’s sake.” “I reckon that will do,” Annie whispered softly. “Mother said, ‘ask for Christ’s sake, and believe you’ll have it, and you will,’ but then”—and here a dark doubt of unbelief began to creep in—“if that is so, why didn’t sister come? I asked God to send her, and I believed He would just as hard, and He didn’t. Maybe it’s that lie I told the other day;” and again the waxen hands were folded, while the little trusting child asked, as she had done many times, to be forgiven for the falsehood told to Jack two weeks before. She had confessed it to Jack, and he had forgiven her, and promised not to tell Georgie when she came. She had also confessed it to God many times, and asked Him not to let her do such naughty things; and now when she told Him about it again, she felt as if that one sin was forgiven, but away down in her heart was a shadow of unbelief, the first she had ever known. She had trusted Heaven, and her faith was firm as a rock that Georgie would come. But the contrary had been the case; Georgie had not come; Heaven had not heard and answered her, and she could not account for it. Poor child, she is not the first or the only one who has found it hard to understand just what Christ meant when He said, “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have them.” CHAPTER XIV. EDNA AND ANNIE. Bright and cheery as was the parlor at No. 30 on that autumnal morning when Edna was expected, the brightest, prettiest thing by far in it was the little girl whom Aunt Luna had dressed with so much care, and who sat propped with cushions and pillows in her easy chair, with her hair falling in soft curls about her face, and her eyes shining with eager expectancy. She was a little vain, and as she settled herself among her cushions and saw Aunt Luna’s evident admiration, she asked: “Do I look nice, Aunt Luna? Do I make a pretty picture? I hope so, for Mrs. Churchill is an _artist_, you know, and ’preciates such things.”