“I am not questioning that. He had no right to hurt this child so—she has believed in him as if he were an angel sent out of Heaven for her special protection.” “He isn’t the only angel,” said Aunt Affy, composedly. “I have been counting on him. That’s why I have had no help—I didn’t bestir myself for I expected news of his coming every week. Mrs. Evans’s sister, a widow who goes out nursing, can come the middle of this month. I didn’t tell Judith. I thought she was happy in being a ministering angel herself. And then she was going away so soon, if her Cousin Don should come I wanted her here when he came.” “You had better send for the nurse,” said Roger, dryly. “I’ll go after supper and see Mrs. Evans. I suppose you and Miss Marion will want my little girl again.” “We certainly shall,” replied Roger with emphasis, “more than ever, now.” “But she mustn’t be an expense to you,” said Aunt Affy, with an anxious frown. “Never you mind the expense. If I don’t burn Don Mackenzie up in a letter, it will be because there are no words hot enough. I wish I could send him her face as she came to the understanding of my news. It would rather mar his honeymoon. I’ve kept this news a week, and now I had to come and blurt it out.” XXVI. AUNT AFFY’S FAITH AND JUDITH’S FOREIGN LETTER. “If I could only surely know That all these things that tire me so Were noticed by my Lord.” At the supper table Aunt Affy asked Judith if she would sit in the entry near Aunt Rody’s door and watch while she “ran out a minute to see Mrs. Evans about something.” With the instinct of the story-teller Judith remembered the little girl who used to sit there and sew carpet-rags, and began to weave herself into a story; the “The Child’s Outlook” was not very hopeful, she thought, but she gave the story a happy ending, just as she herself expected to have a happy ending. She did not know why she had to sit there and watch; there had been no change for days; perhaps Aunt Affy wished her to sit and watch for Aunt Rody to die. The light from a shaded lamp on a table at the foot of the bed, did not touch the sleeping face—the sleeping face, or the dead face, and Judith’s eyes were turned away; she was watching without seeing. She was too miserable to open a book; she was too miserable to think; she thought she was too miserable to pray. The tears came softly, softly and slowly; face and fingers were wet; the only cry in her heart was “mother, mother.” “Mother, I want you,” she sobbed, “will not God let you come back a _little_ while?” The doors were wide open all through the house; in the sitting-room there were low voices, at first her dulled ears caught no articulate word, then the voice of Mrs. Evans spoke clearly: she was saying something about “faith.” Perhaps, the listener thought penitently, she herself was weeping because she had no faith.