As Aunt Affy sewed a tear fell on her coarse work, which Judith tried not to see. Judith sewed diligently, wondering the while how she could make a turning-point for herself. “Yes,” groaned the voice across the hall, “my past is not pleasant to dwell on, the present is full of contradictions and being opposed, and the future—well, I _hope_ I am a Christian.” “I don’t believe you are,” whispered Judith softly over her rags. A heavy step on the sod under the bedroom window brought sudden color to Aunt Affy’s old cheeks; with her sister’s groanings in her ears she was meditating if it were her duty to ask Cephas to go away again. Was the Lord asking her to choose between the two? Pushing back his straw hat and leaning his shirt-sleeved arms on the window-sill, the old man stood, with his lover’s eyes on the delicate, sweet face of the woman he had loved thirty years. “Well, Affy, how’s things?” he asked, joyously. “Just as usual,” she half sighed. “No worse, then?” “Not a bit,” she answered, smiling. “Then I’ll get a bite and go back to work again. It does me good to come and have a look at you and know you are here.” “Oh, I shall always be here.” “And so shall I,” he answered, confidently. After that, how could Aunt Affy but decide once again, and for ever, that he _should_ always be here. XVIII. JUDITH’S TURNING-POINT. “No act falls fruitless; none can tell How vast its power may be, Nor what results infolded dwell Within it silently.” Judith stood in her night-dress and bare feet on the rug of rag-carpet before her bed; she was afraid; she was afraid because of Miss Marion’s story; would she go to sleep, and wake up, and wish she had a key in her door? After another hesitating moment she decided to go down stairs to Aunt Affy’s bed-room and linger around, hoping Aunt Affy would ask her to sleep just one night in that cunning room in that old-fashioned, tall-posted bed, with ever so many small pillows, and that red and green quilt of patch-work baskets with handles. Slipping on the blue wool shoes her mother knitted, she went softly down stairs to the entry bedroom. Aunt Rody’s door, for a wonder, was shut; that was one danger past, for if Aunt Rody heard one foot-fall, without inquiring into it she would certainly send her back to bed. If she were dying of a broken heart Aunt Rody would never know or care. But she did not think it was because she would never care to tell Aunt Rody about her broken heart. Aunt Affy’s door, like the gates of Heaven, was wide open; by the light of a small lamp she was reading her “chapters” in the Bible. One of Judith’s names for Aunt Affy’s Bible was “My Chapters.” “Come in, dear,” welcomed the angel within the gates of Heaven. On the threshold stood the white-robed figure, with her long hair braided loosely and ending in one curl. “Just a minute,” pleaded the rather tearful voice; “shall I disturb your chapters?”